


Oh God I Hate You

by sdd_writes_things



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: "takes them three years to realize" type of slow burn, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Like, Literally i have no idea what im doing, M/M, This is probably gonna be a fix-it though, also expect a very long slow burn, and now its just angst sarcasm and sexual tension, featuring a salty cockblocking robot, i live for those, the working title for this was "if you like piña colada", then cassian got emo in like the first half of ch 1, this fic has nothing to do with piña colada or making love at midnight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-09-15 11:10:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9232268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sdd_writes_things/pseuds/sdd_writes_things
Summary: Cassian Andor's first reaction to Jyn Erso is a combination of wanting to punch her in the face and wanting to fiercely protect her 18-year-old self from any and every danger the galaxy has to throw at her, though he knows very well that she can handle things just fine on her own. She's young and broken and angry, and he finds that, with every year spent with her, her fury only grows into a bonfire. That makes her dangerous and untrustworthy, and yet there's no one else Cassian would rather have at his side.Jyn Erso (unwillingly) spends her first year on Yavin 4 vehemently trusting General Draven a little more than Cassian Andor but hating the captain less. Cassian did, of course, come back for her after years of people leaving her, but he's a spy. Cassian Andor lies for fun and physically his emotions are limited to a measly amount of three. Jyn doesn't understand him, and understands him even less when he shows signs of caring about her. At some point though, she realizes she cares too, and more than she would have liked because it keeps her chained to Yavin. Keeps her chained to Cassian.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Listen before we start i don't really have a set plan or plot for this (yet, I will) because im terrible at planning ahead and im super rusty on the intricacies of canonical Star Wars things such as different types of ships and engines and weapons, so don't expect that to be spot on
> 
> Anyway i hope you all enjoy this! I'm having a blast writing it

Cassian Andor was not someone you'd invite to a party, if only because he couldn't stand them.

Celebrations were tolerable but he wasn't used to a simple good time, as the closest he'd ever gotten to that was his first taste of alcohol in some crusty diner with a stale man that in hindsight wasn't probably the best mentor but had given him tips on how to survive in a galaxy where fear and hunger controlled almost everyone.

Cassian Andor especially wasn't keen on partying  _ now _ , during the middle of an undercover mission with some young stormtroopers who still possessed the naivety to believe that their Imperial commanding officers couldn't possibly be that strict.

They'd learn soon enough.

Part of Cassian actually wanted to attend with his oblivious comrades, as it would allow him to take off at least the suffocating helmet on his head and get a breath of fresh, unfiltered air. Air that was natural and flowing and made you feel alive.

The filters on his helmet only made him feel like his life was petering out, like he needed to be monitored at all costs to keep from losing him.

In a way, this was sort of true. The Empire really  _ was  _ that strict, and if a soldier displayed any signs of deviation from its harsh rules they were sent to reconditioning. Cassian had heard that it wasn't the most pleasant of experiences. Simultaneously, though unbeknownst to the Empire, the Rebellion was  _ also _ watching him, receiving the transmissions he sent late at night from the bathroom in the barracks, making sure he didn't get himself killed.

Not like there was a massive chance of that, here on this huge planet that was almost entirely comprised of Empire sympathizers who would go with whatever law enforcement commanded. Cassian just had to be careful not to blow his cover, and that was difficult.

He was just glad he hadn't been assigned to that Rebel cell based on Lothal. They were efficient and fantastic fighters, but also a ragtag team of, reportedly, two Jedi, a Mandalorian of House Visla (who knew how that could go down), a Lasat, a Twi’lek, and a grumpy droid who didn't really do much besides pick fights with other members of the team. They acted like a typical family, meaning they loved each other of course, but they bickered almost constantly and found themselves in hundreds of sticky situations.

Cassian wouldn't be able to work under those circumstances. Order and organization and cooperation and obedience were what worked for him, even if it meant doing morally questionable things in the name of the Rebellion.

At least here there wasn't a lot going on that the Empire deemed shady, making it easy for him  _ not _ to do things a younger version of himself wouldn't have approved of. If he didn't commit the crime he didn't have to wrestle with his confused conscience, and that was good enough for him.

Under his helmet, Cassian frowned. If he'd had his helmet off, not a lot of people would notice the change in expression. Cassian felt his face was permanently set to at least look disappointed.

This aside, the man knew he shouldn't think too hard about his feelings, his morality. He'd mostly left those behind in a way smaller Cassian, the one who loved his mother and didn't know how to feel about his father, and who started breaking the rules at the age of six because suddenly he'd lost everything and wanted to make those people who took things from him  _ pay _ because he was a mere child.

Cassian figured he needed a drink. Not a lot, he knew what happened when he had too much, but regardless of his restrained thirst the change in shift couldn't come fast enough and when it did he left almost immediately.

He liked not thinking about things.

\----

Outwardly Jyn Erso wasn't much to look at. Small, thin, a pale face and auburn hair that made her unremarkable. She wouldn't stick out in a crowd and she knew that if it hadn't been her own face she'd completely skip over it, subconsciously, when she looked at a holoimage. As it was, she almost missed it every time.

But what she lacked in size and memorability she made up for in strength and speed. This combined with a quick mind had swiftly granted her the position of second in command to Saw Gerrera, and she had a feeling it had nothing to do with the man's affection for her.

Saw was not inherently a kind man. He was a Rebel extremist and had grown up surrounded by war. But he'd adopted Jyn as his own daughter, and she'd gotten to see a side of him the others hadn't. Even so, he didn't pick favorites.

Jyn just happened to be his best soldier.

And as his best soldier, Jyn didn't get much freedom. Being a Partisan meant diligence, being a  _ good  _ Partisan meant being prepared to die, always. Jyn certainly was now.

A mission had gone wrong.  _ Wrong’s too strong a word _ , Jyn thought to herself.  _ It'd gone as planned save for one little detail. _

That little detail was Jyn herself, coincidentally. As the stormtroopers dragged and shoved her bodily to the prison transport, she wondered if Saw would send someone after her.  _ He'd better.  _ Jyn had been left behind once and hated her father for it; if Saw abandoned her she was giving up hope on the Rebellion entirely.

Jyn assessed the stormtroopers that had a hold on her. There were weaknesses in the joints of their armor and if she could pilfer their truncheons and jam them into their chestplates or helmets and pry them off to get a better shot she might just be able to run off with their ship and take  _ them _ as prisoners.

She wiggled her arms a bit. The troopers didn't make any attempt to hold her tighter. Jyn allowed herself a satisfied smile and once inside the transport she twisted her arms free. The troopers made surprised noises as she disappeared from their custody and slipped behind them, knicking their truncheons. They reached for their blasters but Jyn kicked them both in the gut, knocking them backward. Spinning, she took a truncheon to one's head and knocked them out. Jyn grumbled a little, she wanted to hit their skin.

The other one fired blindly and fried the navicomputer and Jyn groaned audibly, kicking their gun out of their hand and grabbing it before they could. Then with a swift blow to the head with the butt of the gun, she sent them to the ground.

She ran up to the dash and checked the damage. She'd need to make a stop on the way home to get it fixed, and she was fairly certain the stormtroopers in the hull wouldn't willingly help her. They probably didn't even know how to fix it. Jyn had discovered a while back that intelligence wasn't a common trait among their ranks.

There was a dry scraping behind her and she saw that one of the troopers, the one she  _ thought _ she'd knocked out with the blaster, was attempting to quietly make their way to the dash where she was stationed. Jyn hadn't turned around, but the trooper’s reflection shone on the polished black metal surface of the dash, and again that satisfied smile took its place on her lips. Whipping around, she kicked the stormtrooper in the head and sending them--no,  _ he _ , she realized--to the floor again, his helmet now loose on his head. She wrenched it off and pressed the barrel to his sweaty forehead, pushing him back against the wall. Jyn started to press down on the trigger.

“Wait!!”

Normally she would've scoffed at this plea but there was an edge of something else in his voice that made her hesitate. Behind her the other trooper was waking up, and she recognized the distorted uttering of “Kriff” hissing out of the trooper’s helmet.

She looked back at the man in front of her, studying him with scrutiny. Jyn wouldn't give him the pleasure of hearing her voice, not if he didn't give her a reason to keep her finger off the trigger.

The man was maybe a few years older than her, with dark hair and dark eyes and skin certainly darker than hers, but still pale in comparison to Saw. He swallowed, hands up in the air, eyes flicking between Jyn and his comrade. He was making a difficult decision, she could tell. The way he looked at her couldn't make it any more obvious. It was guarded and reluctant but resigned simultaneously and a flickering suspicion flew through her mind for a split second.

Perhaps he was on her side.

Quickly she dismissed the notion and adjusted her grip on the blaster. He flinched and she glared at him. The man seemed to have gotten the message, and swallowed again.

“My name is Cassian Andor,” he started slowly, and she could see the defiance rising in his deep, hard brown eyes, daring her to pull the trigger. “Captain of Rebel Intelligence, and if you don't mind I'd like you to take me to Saw Gerrera.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Cassian's morality gets in the way of his own logic and internally annoys him and Jyn is ready to fight everyone, specifically Cassian and Saw
> 
> Also Cassian is a bad person to shop with don't go with him to shop it'll only end in frustration for everyone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen i couldn't remember how old either of them were in Rogue One but i believe cassian was like. 25 or 26 and jyn was 21 i think? So the math on their ages in this chapter might be a little off but who knows not me
> 
> also again i know .5 things about star wars spacecraft so if somethings off i apologize lmao

Cassian tried not to acknowledge the daggers the other trooper was glaring at him. He could feel them even through her helmet. The girl who held the gun to his forehead--he believed her name was Jyn Erso--gave him an unconvinced look, but to her credit (and the frantic pulse of his heart) she lowered the gun an inch or two. She couldn't be any older than he was but he couldn't be sure with that angry fire in her eyes and the worn tiredness on her face that showed that she'd seen some things.

She was small, a head or two shorter than him and definitely not as broad-shouldered. But she'd competently fought him and KS-4235, schooled them even, and wasn't even out of breath, just looked ready to fight him again. And while Cassian wasn't against fighting anyone, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted a standard-issue Imperial truncheon--or two--in his eye. Or a blaster bolt in his head.

“I've been under cover here for a couple weeks now because somehow--no one told me how--we caught wind of your mission here and needed to send someone to Saw directly to deliver an important message,” Cassian explained slowly. “Otherwise he wouldn't listen.”

Jyn eyed him, finally speaking up. “What makes you think he'll listen to you? You could tell _me_ the message, he'll listen to me, and I can send you home without hurting you too badly,” she said craftily. It was very clear she still didn't think too highly of him.

“Yes, but take into consideration that Saw specifically asked Mon--” Cassian paused, looking at the injured trooper across from him. “--our leader to send a messenger to him if they wanted to talk to him. He wouldn't be happy if we didn't comply…”

Jyn sneered. “Fortunately for you, you're right,” she snarled. She held out the hand with the gun and pointed it at the other trooper. “One last thing before I decide if I can trust you at all: if you really are Rebellion, the death of this one won't mean much to you, will it?”

Cassian didn't move, couldn't. The trooper had been a friend of sorts to him, but his mission was also on the line and he needed to see it through. He didn't look at the trooper, stared at the ground instead. The electric buzz of the bolt zipping through air and then striking plastoid armor rang out in the hull and Cassian tried not to think about KS-4235’s heavy glare, about how she'd felt when he revealed himself.

Instinctively, justifications ran through his head. Jyn had spared him and technically saved his skin by disposing of the one other person on this planet who knew who he was and who he fought for. It wasn't like KS was important to him because in actuality she wasn't. She didn't mean a lot to him and even if she did he didn't have the luxury of such attachments. It was war time and he couldn't risk grieving, only following orders without question.

 _All in the name of the Rebellion_.

Jyn yanked him up by the arm and pointed accusingly at the smoking navicomputer. “Even for a _fake_ stormtrooper you can't aim for shit,” she scoffed. “Are there any places around here with good mechanics?”

“Not in this part of town,” Cassian replied dryly. He had better aim than that, surely, he told himself. What did _she_ know? “You've drawn enough attention to yourself already.”

Jyn shot him a venomous look before begrudgingly relenting with a huff. She'd needed to blow up the command tower and had succeeded wonderfully, but then sought shelter in the bar Cassian had retired to for the evening, and once blaster fire had scattered all over the building he'd sighed and put his too-tight helmet back on his head and seized her arrival as the chance he needed to get to Saw. The man moved around a lot without notifying the Alliance and only his Partisans knew where he was.

This was why he needed Jyn to take him. Anyone else, even other Partisans, likely would have refused. And while Jyn was just as terrifying as the rest she was slightly more reasonable.

“We could fly to the other side of the planet but this is a Core world full of Imperials and news of you will have spread to where you'd need to go in the time it'd take to get there,” he said flatly. “One of the moons or a neighboring planet would be okay but it would still end up with us entering hyperspace from the atmosphere, blaster bolts on our tail. A world in the next system over or maybe a few after that is smartest; you certainly leave a big impact.”

Looking down on her, he figured she probably wasn't too close to his age. Though battle-worn and matured, she was likely between sixteen and eighteen at best. Way too young to be in this war.

But then, he was barely twenty-two. So they were sort of in the same boat.

Jyn leaned against the wall and folded her arms. “I thought you wanted to see Saw as soon as possible.”

Cassian's patience was wearing thin. “I do,” he said, gritting his teeth. “But it won't do us much good if we fix the computer but only have the sublight engines.”

He hoped he wouldn't have to deal with her after this was over. She was stubborn and annoying and reminded him too much of himself when he was her age and it bothered him, something he would make a point to let her know later on.

He wouldn't tell her the Alliance wanted to question her about her father. Wanted him, specifically, to question her in front of Draven. Cassian didn't trust her now because of her lineage but mentioning the crucial side-mission of requesting Saw’s audience would only make her angrier than she perpetually seemed to be and Cassian knew he didn't want her fighting him.

He wasn't being chivalrous, he was actively fearing for his life.

As Jyn grumbled and set to work starting up the sublight engines, Cassian wondered if she had the same brilliant--if mislead--mind as her father, Galen Erso. The man hadn't done anything worth noting yet, but Jyn's record of escaping Imperial prisons without much help at all was a little suspicious.

Now, Cassian didn't think she was Imperial, but Draven at least assumed she was a sympathizer and knew of her father's plans and achievements even if they hadn't interacted in a while.

Cassian started shedding his armor, leaving only the black activewear underneath. Plastoid was light but kept in a lot of heat, and he'd been meaning to get rid of it ever since the hatch of the transport closed. He was originally going to take out the other trooper anyway and ask Jyn politely to take him to Saw, but Jyn had had other plans and now he was wary of asking her even a small favor.

He wondered how old she really was. Years of living amongst Saw’s rebels had matured her, in personality and appearance, and that could be both a good thing and a bad thing in a time such as this. A softer part of him he didn't like to acknowledge often hoped that age deception wouldn't get her into trouble.

“So, Captain, take us to that secretive mechanic before the others figure out this rust-bucket’s been sitting here too long,” Jyn called, jarring him out of his thoughts. “I get the feeling you know exactly where to go and while I'm not too keen on going anywhere with you--”

“Thank you.”

“--I want to leave this godforsaken rock as soon as possible so, take the helm, if you please.”

She let him slide past her into the cockpit and cursed behind him as the transport quaked, no doubt from blaster fire and thermal detonators outside. Cassian got the ship into the air and Jyn took to the guns, firing below at the troopers who had figured out something was wrong.

“Mr. Andor, I highly suggest you PUNCH IT!” Jyn yelled. “Put in a manual course for--”

“I know what I'm doing!!” Cassian shouted back.

“Also I wiped the tracking systems so they shouldn't be able to find us!!!”

“Good for you!”

Cassian had some difficulty locating the controls for manual hyperspace, he'd never actually _flown_ one of these before, and Jyn was cursing at him the whole way out of the atmosphere with TIEs on their tail until he managed to get the coordinates and find the correct route.

Once in hyperspace, the ship rumbling quietly as nothingness sped by at the speed of light, Cassian reached into his pocket to judge how many credits he had left on him.

Enough for a change of clothes, he figured.

\----

Jyn wasn't particularly set on taking Cassian _anywhere,_ much less to Saw. He was grumpy and vague and took hours to find new clothes that he liked, so when the navicomputer had been repaired a good two hours before he showed back up at the transport in something that admittedly looked good on him, Jyn was prepared to leave without him.

Cassian gave her a challenging look, reading her instantly. Were her emotions that clear? She'd have to work on that. “How long have you been waiting?”

“A few hours,” Jyn said, glaring at him.

“I _could_ be sorry,” Cassian shrugged as she took the helm.

“I _could_ just leave you here,” Jyn reminded him, and he rolled his eyes.

“Fine, take me to Saw, and I might shut up on the way,” the man grumbled. Jyn was starting to realize he grumbled a lot. He always had this sour, disappointed look on his face like someone had forgotten his birthday and he was simultaneously trying to cover up his feelings and passive-aggressively let them know he wasn't happy.

On top of that she knew he didn't trust her and frankly she didn't trust him either. As far as she was concerned once she got him to Saw she and him were done and she didn't ever want to see him again. Partly because he was also ruggedly handsome and she hated herself for thinking that.

The transport exited hyperspace a second time over a remote planet in a pretty much empty system. It was strange and Jyn fingered the crystal around her neck anxiously. There should have been fighters out there already, being that she and Cassian had arrived in an Imperial ship. Jyn tried to get a message down to the planet over the comm.

“Jyn Erso to Base, come in.” Nothing but static.

Something was wrong, something was very wrong and Jyn had a feeling she knew exactly what it was.

Cassian came up behind her and for the first time today she thought she heard _emotion_ in his voice. Maybe not good emotion but at least she knew he could feel.

“What's wrong?”

Jyn set her jaw. “I don't know,” she lied. “I…we have to set down.”

“That seems a little shifty, Jyn, it might not--”

“We have to.”

As she guided the transport into the atmosphere and down to the surface Jyn realized Cassian hadn't asked her name and knew it anyway. Knew she was a Partisan, knew she had personal connections with Saw.

What little trust she had in him suddenly went down further.

The transport landed with a hiss of hydrolic pumps and stabilizers and Jyn grabbed the blaster that had, a few hours earlier, belonged to Cassian.

“Can I have that back?” he asked flatly, following her out of the hull with his eyes.

“No. Stop dinking around and get down here,” she snapped. “Grab something. There might be a pistol or a rifle or a bowcaster in there, but let's hope it can hold a lot of rounds because with your aim you'll need it.”

He made a disgruntled noise behind her. “My aim is just fine, you just caught me off guard!”

“You keep telling yourself that.”

Cassian eventually caught up to her, falling silent completely and displaying an air of professionalism that made her partially rethink her impression of him. Maybe he was competent in some respects, but she wasn't going to change her outlook on him completely.

After all, he still knew more about her than he needed to and was supposedly part of the Rebellion, who'd never quite gotten along with Saw’s rebels. Cassian was an antihero to her, basically on her side but still not someone to hold in any regard.

Jyn shook her head, she needed to focus. It was so quiet, no cursing or laughing or sounds of practice. Just an eerie wind whistling through the mountains and valleys and maybe the sand shifting here and there along the dried riverbank.

Jyn walked slowly along the bank, sand and gravel crunching under her boots. Had she not been used to holding a gun for extended periods of time her arms might have been tired, but she was still going strong. She risked a glance back at Cassian.

Having been sobered up in the face of duty he suddenly looked three years older, at least. His cold dark eyes had hardened over, even more so than before, and the bitter disappointed look on his face had deepened into something almost unreadable. The most Jyn could extract from it was determination, but that was about it.

That steely vagueness of his face bothered her and he'd probably used it a lot. Rebel Intelligence, he said? Yes, he'd definitely used it on a frequent basis. He was a spy, an interogator. He'd need a stone-like visage that bored holes into his victims and made them squirm under the calm scrutiny of his opaque mask.

And he used it now, perhaps just because his spy face and duty face were the same thing, but maybe because it would frighten whatever enemies may have lurked here.

Jyn focused on putting one foot in front of the other, heart rate picking up when she saw black and blue smoke weaving into the sky like a snake. She crested the hill, and the scene before her was horrific.

Bodies. Most of them Imperial. A few buildings destroyed, lots of fire. Saw and his rebels completely gone.

He'd left her, he'd left her. Maybe he had to, maybe he had no choice, but he hadn't called either. He hadn't even made an attempt to send her any sort of message.

He’d left her.

Jyn swallowed down her anger and wandered through the bodies. A few she knew. A few she might have known but they weren't much more now than mutilated lumps of flesh and blood and bone. She heard Cassian, a ways away, picking through Imperial corpses for anything of use. At least he had the decency to leave her people alone.

He pulled a satchel from a medic’s shoulder and started placing detonators, amo, and medical supplies inside. “I take it we're not seeing Saw today.”

Jyn bristled at the name. He had the gaul to leave her behind--

“I don't know where he is,” she said hopelessly, staring at the sky. “Saw is particular about making sure no one can track him, not even me.” Jyn turned to Cassian, who, with his new bag around his torso and his weight on one leg, looked a little like an impatient mother in a market whose child was begging for a toy they couldn't have. “You won't be seeing Saw, at all. Whatever message the Rebellion needs you to deliver won't get there. I've tried his comm and everyone else's, the lines are all dead.”

Cassian’s expression didn't change much. At least she knew he could feel exactly one and a half emotions; that made him sort of easy to figure out.

“Well, if we can't get to Saw, I guess the message is worthless now,” he sighed. Definitely a stressed disgruntled mother with too many small children. “So it won't make much of a difference if you hear it.”

“Depends on what it is.”

“Saw’s methods were getting out of hand, Jyn,” Cassian explained. “The Alliance officially declared him an extremist and needed him to know that unless he saw reason working with him was severely limited to emergencies only.”

Jyn almost laughed and then remembered she was supposed to be angry. “Well, lucky for you, we--well, _they,_ now--were about to break off from the Alliance anyway,” she remarked. “They probably already have.”

Cassian gave her a curious expression, again that spy face but maybe a little softer, and then the ghost of a smile flickered on his lips for a moment.

Mentally Jyn scratched out the number of emotions she'd cataloged Cassian as having.

Two emotions. He had two emotions now.

 

Neither of them felt like flying anywhere and spent the night near the ruined base. The planet was warm, but at night it could get quite cold, and so Jyn had started a small campfire outside the ship.

She let Cassian sleep in the transport. It was really only meant for a few prisoners in cramped quarters to limit movement and therefore chance of escape, so really only one person could sleep in there comfortably. Jyn was used to sleeping outside on a hard surface, so it didn't bother her much to sit in front of the fire, knees to her chest, poking the flames with a stick.

Cassian’s footsteps weren't very loud in the thin grass, muffled and dull. But they were there and Jyn looked up at him, and in the wan light of evening shadows played across his face to make him look even older. He had worry lines, prominent in daylight but more so in the dark. She briefly wondered what he'd gone through before reminding herself that she didn't care.

Or at least thought she didn't.

Cassian sat opposite her and stared into the flame. “How'd you meet Saw?”

“You're the intelligence officer,” she replied stiffly. “Shouldn't you know?”

Cassian gave her a slightly guilty look and she guessed he'd figured out that _she_ had figured out he had an entire record on her.

“The Alliance currently doesn't possess that information,” he supplied.

“Is that why you're asking?”

“Maybe. Whatever the reason I want to know is, I hope you'll understand that it's still going to end up in the Alliance databanks anyway.”

“I'm not Alliance,” Jyn hissed. “And I'm not Partisan either, not anymore.”

“Maybe not,” Cassian shrugged, “but for now you're stuck with me, and therefore under rebel surveillance. Which means you've become a fact in the Alliance’s brain. So maybe answer my question.”

Jyn stayed silent for a long time. “I was eight when he found me,” she finally admitted. “Imperials had just showed up on our farm, murdered my mother when she tried to kill their commanding officer. He was disgusting. A tall, palid man in white and he had a cape and he--he took my father. That or my father chose to go with him, I don't know. But he left me behind, and Saw found me. Raised me as his own.” She put a divot in the sand with the toe of her boot. “I first shot a gun when I was nine. Had my first glass of fermented bantha milk when I was thirteen. It's a hard life to live out here.”

“What do you know about your father?” Cassian asked, casually, as if they were sitting at a table in a bar, talking over a mug of caf.

Jyn squinted at him. “Not a lot. I just know he was at one point good friends with the man in white. I like to think he's dead, makes things easier. Haven't seen him in about nine years, got no reason to believe he's alive.”

Cassian’s silence was suddenly heavy and when Jyn looked back up at him there was a different look in his eyes. “Nine years,” he mused, almost to himself. “You're only seventeen.”

“Almost eighteen,” Jyn corrected. Her chest felt heavy and she hated it because she _knew_ it was Cassian’s sudden change in attitude that caused it. She hated pity and sympathy, it made her feel clumsy and tired. “...what about it?”

“I guessed you were eighteen but…I don't know, a lot of the things you've done today make you seem a lot older.”

Jyn gave him a hard look. “In war time you have to be older than you are,” she told him quietly. “People don't take children seriously.”

Cassian gave her that almost-not-there smile again and looked up at the stars.

“I know.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn is confused as to why she let Cassian take her to Yavin 4 and is also not afraid to bash Draven's face in
> 
> Cassian is subconsciously growing attached to this angry tiny rebel and all he knows of it is he's a bit more irritated than normal. Also he hates the cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long!!! I had this part of the chapter ready like last week and I thought i needed to continue it but then looking back o realized I didn't need to so
> 
> it is Here™ finally
> 
> hopefully future chapters wont take as long lol

Jyn didn't know why she'd accepted Cassian's offer to head to Yavin 4. Maybe it was her exhaustion. Maybe it was the gentle way in which he'd asked, the way he distanced himself just enough so that she wouldn't be uncomfortable.

Maybe it was the pure shock that had set in after her initial anger that made her head spin and her heart ache in a way she didn't want to feel.

The transport rumbled a little in hyperspace. Jyn was drowsy, filled with emotion that knotted in her throat and frustrated her. She still didn't like Cassian much, of course not. He was morally ambiguous and didn't trust her and was suddenly being super kind to her and she couldn't stand it.

Could she?

She was falling asleep, in his company, with only his weighty silence screaming through the hull. She could almost guess his thoughts. He was still thinking about  _ her _ , and it made her uncomfortable.

“You're too young for this,” he'd said earlier, mournfully. Jyn hadn't quite understood and gotten defensive about it.

She was perfectly capable, she'd argued. In return he'd given her that phantom grin, the one that wasn't quite there. But it was sadder, and empathetic. And now as Jyn slipped into her dreams, she realized what he'd meant.

Jyn was eight again. It was pouring rain and Saw was carrying her to his ship and she was sobbing. He didn't say a word. Jyn didn't want to leave with him, she wanted her mama and papa. She didn't trust him. He was scary and gruff and his silence intimidated her. But she had no other choice than let him take her.

Saw stopped, looking at something on the ground that a death trooper had disregarded earlier. Through her tears, Jyn watched his face from her place in his arms. Something softened in his eyes and he bent down to pick up whatever he'd seen.

The man's large, dark, rough hand placed it in Jyn's small, pale, fragile one. It was Stormy, her stormtrooper doll she'd dropped in the fields the day before when the man in white’s ship had arrived on the coastline. Saw gave her a gentle look, and a small smile. “Don't tell the others,” he whispered conspiratorially and poked her nose. Jyn laughed and wiped her eyes. She clutched Stormy to her chest and snivelled.

The man in white had shot her mama. Maybe she was too young to really process what had happened, but she knew her mama was gone.

Jyn was nine. The hunters were here, they were looking for her and Saw couldn't get to her in time and she knew she'd have to do something. She evaded them, gave them false starts within the base. And then one grabbed her and she panicked and suddenly the gun was in her hands and they were both on the ground and he wasn't moving and she realized this had happened to her mama and she was crying, shaking. Saw found her and scooped her up and shot the other hunters before running with her, telling her she had done the right thing and that he was proud of her.

Jyn was thirteen. The day had been rough and she scored more kills than the others. Her friend decided she was more than ready to join the adults at the table, and, smiling, he offered her a glass of something sour-smelling.

“Try it,” he whispered. “Even if you don't like it now you'll love it soon enough.”

Jyn was dubious, but took a sip anyway. It didn't taste as bad as it smelled but it was still horrible. The planet was cold though, and while her drink was just as cold the more she drank it the warmer she felt and by the time she made it back to her cot she'd drank around four entire bottles of the stuff.

Jyn was sixteen. She had blood on her hands and dirt in her face and she was running, running. Her chest was tight, he hadn't deserved it. But everything had happened so fast and she had no choice and as she ran beside Saw, who was aging and slower than he used to be, she couldn't stop thinking about the look on the man's face after she'd shot him. She didn't know what kind of gun she'd used, just that it didn't fire laser bolts. It fired beads of metal and the man had bled out there on the ground and she'd tried to stop it, frantically whispering, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry!”

And then the building had blown up and the man was gone and her hands were red and dripping. Jyn fought back tears; Saw had taught her to control her emotions for her own safety, but the man's face haunted her with every step she took. A mine exploded off to her right and Saw fell, crying out in pain. Jyn halted, turning on her heel and somehow gathering the strength to drag him back to the transport.

One foot was missing. The other was too damaged to save, she knew it.

Once in the transport, getting away from there as fast as possible, Jyn sat in the corner, trembling. She shouldn't have been affected like this, she'd done that to a lot of people in the past.

But this time she'd looked up and his eyes had met hers and she vowed never to look up again, trying to keep down the bile in her throat.

There was a sudden silence, and Jyn was back in the Imperial transport. They'd exited hyperspace, and were now closing in on a small green moon that Jyn wasn't particularly interested in visiting. Cassian pushed a few buttons on the dash and the overhead, calling as he went, “Welcome to Yavin 4, Jyn Erso.” She caught the reflection of that ghostly smile in the windshield and he gave a bitter chuckle. “You're not gonna like it.”

“Can't possibly be as bad as being stuck with you,” Jyn shot back. It wasn't nearly as biting as she intended it, and that confused her.

Cassian laughed dryly and she watched his shoulders move in a shrug. “Nah, it's worse. Hot, muggy, lots of bugs…Draven.”

“Draven?”

He seemed more tense suddenly. “You definitely won't like him. He can be very narrow-minded and doesn't always listen to Mon Mothma, sometimes setting up his own missions under her nose. His orders can be questionable.” Cassian sighed. “He means well though. Just wants what's best for the Rebellion, for the galaxy.”

“So do you, don't you?” Jyn asked. “If his orders seem bad, like they won't help, you don't listen, right?”

His hesitation irritated her. When he spoke his voice was tight. “I don't have the luxury of defying orders if I don't agree,” he answered carefully. “I have to trust people like Draven to make the right decision and follow through without question.”

“Do you though?” Jyn challenged. She wasn't about to join this Rebellion and after she left this moon it was all about her, but she also couldn't let someone do what they were told blindly. In that way Cassian was like a stormtrooper, which might have been why he hadn't blown his cover earlier than he did when Jyn put a gun to his head the day before. She considered doing it again, and reluctantly decided against it.

Cassian had fallen silent after her argument, like he was really thinking about it for the first time ever. Or maybe the hundredth time; she didn't know him and things like that could be thought about a lot before they really struck someone.

Whatever the case, when he put on the comm headset and requested landing before they entered the atmosphere so that the squadrons wouldn't attack, his voice was still tight and cautious. “Captain Andor to Base One,” he said, monotone. “We're coming in in a stolen Imperial prison transport, do not send out the fighters. Permission to land.”

There was a moment of static before another voice fizzled through the comm. “Cleared for landing, Captain. Who's  _ we _ ?”

“Me and a…friend I picked up along the way,” he replied haltingly, shooting Jyn a look. She glared back at him.

Jyn didn't want to be here, she reminded herself. Why had she let him take her? Why? She was mad at him and really the only reason she had to not like him was that his morals were unclear and probably misplaced. She didn't need to be mad at him, but Jyn was always angry, and she was looking for something to take it out on, she told herself. It was a convincing excuse for now. She didn't want to deal with whatever the real reason was because she knew it was directly linked to her.

Jyn wasn't exactly a humble person despite the conditions she'd lived in, and admitting something was her fault wasn't something she wanted to do. 

 

Cassian was right about Yavin 4, Jyn thought to herself begrudgingly the minute she stepped out onto the tarmac. It smelled like rotting foliage and moldering flowers and not in the good way. It was like month-old cooked broccoli and fermented orange juice and her nose wrinkled up as soon as she took in a breath. It wasn't the worst thing she'd ever smelled, but certainly not something she'd want to get used to.

Cassian smiled a little at her reaction, and this time it wasn't almost there. It wasn't a hint. It was an actual smile and it made her mad.

“What?!”

“Takes some getting used to,” Cassian shrugged.

Jyn sniffed haughtily. “No, I'd rather not get used to this, thank you,” she grumbled.

“There are worse things here. Biting insects, poisonous flora, venomous reptiles…”

“Oh goodie. I want to stay already. Are there vacation homes here? Maybe a small ziggurat overlooking a steaming pit of tar? I live for those rugged, wild views. I'd like it filled with termites too.”

Cassian gave her a curious look. “Y’know, we can just send you on your way right now,” he offered.

Jyn huffed. “I know you want something from me, or at least the Rebellion does,” she quipped. “And I won't be joining you, I promise you that. But, admittedly, you're offering me a safe place to stay and a warm meal, and as much as I would like to kick you in the--”

“Jyn--”

“--and steal a ship and get away from here, I can't pass up food. You'd better have some fermented bantha milk.”

“I don't, personally,” Cassian said slowly, “but I know someone who does.”

“Great, I've been needing some,” Jyn snorted. They rounded a corner in the hangar and Jyn recognized a rebel with a large bruise on his face. “Hey, I remember that guy. I hit him in the face with a shovel recently.”

“Why?”

“Thought he was an Imperial, though I probably would have hit him anyway if I didn't.”

“Again, why?”

Jyn looked up at Cassian, her gaze hard and her stance defensive. “The Rebellion has only brought me pain,” she told him, dangerously quiet. “Even with Saw I was sure he would abandon me and if he did I wasn't going after him. I want the Empire dead as much as anyone here, Captain, but I want no part of your Rebellion. Take from me what you want and only what you want, and then I'm leaving.”

To his credit he didn't try to protest, just gave her a short, silent nod after looking at her for a moment with that spy face again.

She hated that he could just  _ do _ that, suddenly switch off all physical display of emotion like a hologram and make it impossible to tell what he was thinking. Jyn wished she could punch him but it would be dangerous with this many people around.

_ Me before you _ , she thought.  _ I'd rather not get shot today _ .

Cassian lead her through a series of corridors, and a few Rebels here and there shot them vaguely intrigued glances but the rest generally ignored them. Jyn was grateful for that.

She stared at the stone walls and ceiling along the way. The Rebels hadn't built this place, simply adapted it to their needs and refurbished it where it was unsafe. These were huge, old temples they'd taken over. To what religion they belonged Jyn did not know and didn't really care enough to guess, it only reminded her of her mother's love of history.

Then there were the dorms. The ones Cassian was taking her to lined only one wall but there were many of them, hastily built and not very cozy. That was alright. Jyn hadn't known comfort since Lah’mu and the beds in Imperial cells weren't much better than the frequent nights spent on the ground with the Partisans.

A flare of resentment rose up in Jyn and she fought it down.

Cassian stopped in front of an empty dorm and gestured to the open door. “Make yourself at home,” he said, without much enthusiasm. Jyn couldn't say she blamed him.

“This place isn't and will never be my home,” Jyn replied cheerily, tossing her blaster on the cot. “But thanks.”

Cassian made a noise--maybe a laugh, maybe a cough--behind her to acknowledge her gratitude. Or lack thereof. “Someone will bring a change of clothes around later,” he supplied. “Maybe some blaster grease too if you're lucky. Explore around if you want but please don't kill anybody. It would make my job that much harder.”

“When you put it that way I really want to.”

“Don't. Meals are at 07:00, 12:30, and 20:00 in the mess hall,” he continued. “You'll only be called to briefings if I or someone my rank or above requests it. And your authority here is next to zero, being that you refuse to be a part of this, so don't expect a lot of things to come easy for you.” He started to move from the door.

Jyn called, “Where are  _ you _ going?”

Cassian kept on walking, yelling over his shoulder, “Briefing.”

Jyn sat on her cot and stared at the wall. It was going to take a long time to finally get out of here, she knew it.

\----

Cassian didn't much enjoy a lot of what Draven had him do but he was a friend and his superior and so Cassian didn't have much of a choice besides to listen.

However, this one particular instance was a bit different.

Cassian had, of course, thought about this since the moment he learned Jyn was barely an adult. He'd asked her a few questions that resembled the ones Draven would have asked, and while her answers were sort of vague they were truthful, Cassian could tell.

A girl who’d just lost everything--for the second time in her life, Cassian realized--didn't deserve to be questioned the way Draven typically went about it, no matter how strong she was.

But then Jyn had asked that simple, thought-provoking question after he claimed he needed to listen to Draven: “Do you?”

And then she'd fallen silent, let him think about it for a while.

Now Draven was asking him to relentlessly fire off question after question, hold the girl at gunpoint if he had to. Cassian bristled.

“Sir, she's not of any danger to us,” he protested. “She knows next to nothing about her father and she doesn't exactly hold Saw Gerrera in the highest regard right now, he abandoned her.”

“Maybe for good reason,” Draven countered. “She might be an Imperial spy, maybe her cover is too good for even you to see through.”

“No, I know she's telling the truth,” Cassian argued. “I have never seen anyone look so angry when they say they hate the Empire. You can't just fake that.”

Draven would not be swayed. “Captain, this is a  _ war _ . We need to take every precaution we can. She's the daughter of Galen Erso, Imperial scientist and architect. The chances that the Empire is working on something big increase every day, and we need what intel we can get about what might be going on.”

“I can't do that, sir,” Cassian decided, matching Draven’s steely gaze. “She's been through a lot and doesn't want to be here. Asking her anything the way I normally do will only shut her up. She'll lose what little trust she has in us. As it is she's not too fond of our Rebellion and definitely isn't interested in the Empire.”

“Captain--”

“She's just a kid!!” Cassian snapped. Draven eyed him dangerously.

“There's no such thing as children in wartime,” came a soft, strong voice behind Draven. Of course, Jyn had snuck into the briefing.

Draven turned on her, fixing her with a harsh glare. She glared right back and immediately Cassian knew this wasn't going to end well. At least one of them was probably going to end up hurt. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, watching warily.

Jyn could not be moved, and this was visibly frustrating Draven. “What all did you hear, girl?”

Jyn looked at Cassian warningly over Draven’s shoulder, keeping her eyes on his. “Only your little argument about whether or not I should be questioned,” she replied breezily. “Captain, while I appreciate your very clear concern, I can handle interrogation.” She looked back at Draven. “But you won't get much out of me. It's as he said, I know next to nothing about Galen Erso. The fact that you know he's alive and working for the Empire proves you know more than me.”

Draven shot Cassian an unreadable look and Cassian shrugged helplessly. He tried to tell him. Draven proceeded to grab Jyn's arm and drag her away for questioning, and Cassian only managed a panicked, “Sir--” before Jyn had the general on the floor, his left arm pinned behind his back after having made a sickening cracking noise.

Jyn was stepping on his arm. “Thank you, General,” she hissed, “but I can walk there myself. If you promise not to touch me again I promise not to run off and/or break your other arm.”

Draven spouted some curses mixed with gibberish at Cassian and he only stared back blankly. “I'd suggest taking her up on the offer, General,” he said.

Draven grunted something of an agreement and Jyn stepped off his back, allowing Cassian to help him up. Draven held his arm. “‘She's not of any danger to us,’ you said,” he grumbled.

“Not if you leave her alone. Come on, Mothma would like to hear what you have to say.”

 

Interrogation went about as well as Cassian thought it would. Nothing Jyn supplied was new to him and Draven looked steamed when it was over, frustrated that he couldn't get more out of her than Cassian did, even if Cassian  _ had _ asked most of the questions. Also, Cassian figured, the fact that his arm had just been broken by someone twenty years his junior was frustrating and more than a little embarrassing.

“Captain!”

“Yes?” Cassian called across the room.

Draven approached him. “Captain, take a day or two to rest up, but I have another mission for you,” he said. Cassian couldn't bring himself to feel frustrated about that anymore. Vacations were pretty much a myth when you were in the military. “Just a simple recon mission on Lothal, get a good idea of the new Imperial base around the south pole of the planet.”

“What about--”

“The Phoenix squadron is currently experiencing many difficulties with Imperials,” Draven cut in. “They won't be able to. And right now you're the only one I can trust to do that.”

“It'll be cold.”

“You have at least three parkas, and it's balmy compared to Hoth. Besides, you won't be going alone.”

Cassian dreaded that. “Sir, recon missions draw less attention when there's only one or two people,” he protested.

“It's a large base, you'll need three. Four if you count the astromech that's coming along. It and Sergeant Fletch will be taking the south and west of the base. I need you to keep an eye on Jyn Erso and take the north and--”

“Wait, no, no, I'm not--” Cassian gawked at Draven, whose gloating smile spread wide across his face. “You don't trust her at all! Why get her out of your sight?!”

“I need her close to the Intelligence Officer as much as possible,” he answered craftily. “If anyone can find something suspicious about her, it's you. And, if she's who she says she is, maybe she'll warm up to us eventually. Despite how much I  _ don't  _ like her right now, we could use someone with her fighting skills.”

“General, she doesn't want to be recruited,” Cassian argued feebly.

“That's why you're the Fulcrum and not me. She'll join eventually, especially if you're her main influence.”

_ She's going to  _ shoot  _ me.  _ Cassian ran a hand over his face and sighed. “Alright, but I don't think this is a good idea.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn really, REALLY wants to blow up the comm tower despite the fact that this is a reconnaissance mission and Cassian feels like a tired, impatient mom having to drag her around
> 
> Bonus: cassian is freezing always please help him  
> Bonus #2: cassian thinks taking down a security droid is going to be easier than jyn makes it out to be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM SORRY FOR THE DELAYED UPDATE YET AGAIN SO MUCH HAS BEEN HAPPENING and ive accidentally started on at least 2 more rogue one aus oops so watch out for those  
> but yeah here's the new chapter! this one was a hard one to write? took a long time and i had to suffer through lots of writer's block for this but it's finally here and i think it turned out pretty good

Jyn definitely was going to break Draven’s other arm. She was certainly ready to break Cassian's when he showed up at her dorm with the message. 

“I cannot believe this,” she huffed in the transport (a different one than before). “I told him I didn't want to be recruited but maybe he doesn't have any  _ ears _ . If he does he won't when we get back.”

“We're not recruiting you,” Cassian sighed from the cockpit. “He just wants me to keep an eye on you, and apparently this is the best way to do so.”

Jyn frowned and stared at Cassian's bag. She wondered what interesting things he may or may not have packed that could possibly become an opportunity for blackmail. His back was turned, so she snuck over to it and went through it swiftly. 

There wasn't a lot, just a couple blasters, some ammo, and a few changes of clothes. Maybe a couple food rations here and there and a pouch of credits (something compelled her to leave it), but nothing of significance to the man. No holoimage of family or friends, nothing he'd carry along with him at all times to provide a strange sense of security. 

He packed light, and she couldn't be sure if he had anything anywhere that meant a lot to him. He'd certainly never let her in his room to check (she didn't want to go in there anyway), but something about him gave her the feeling that sentiment wasn't his strong suit. She doubted he had anything of personal worth. 

If this was truly the case, he wouldn't miss one of his blasters, right? 

Cassian slid between the chairs of the cockpit and almost ignored Jyn on his way out to check the engines before he noticed the gun in her hand. Jyn looked up at him innocently. 

“Where’d you get that?” he demanded. 

“I found it,” Jyn shrugged. She wasn't lying. Cassian squinted at her suspiciously. “I know how to use it.”

“That's what I'm afraid of,” Cassian muttered. “Give it to me."

Jyn pulled her hand away. This gun was hers now. “Trust goes both ways, Captain. If I can trust you not to recruit me you can trust me not to shoot you.”

He gave her a grim look of resignation and stepped out of the transport to double check that no one and nothing was in the way of the engines. 

Another officer--Sergeant Fletch, Jyn guessed--stepped on board with their astromech. The droid was, according to the sergeant, C1-11L and it was a somewhat of a pushover. It also apparently mothered its friends and was loyal to a fault. 

Also, grumpy. It was grumpy. 

This became apparent as it went around the hull rearranging things while no doubt complaining in binary about the state of disarray the ship was in. The sergeant watched it for a minute and then took their seat as copilot in the cockpit. 

Jyn watched them carefully. They didn't appear to fit the typical gender binary--which wasn't uncommon, a lot of species didn't even have a binary and someone not feeling like they were in it was almost expected--and was mostly covered in mottled green scales. They had a tail, which only weirded Jyn out a little, and had claws on their fingers. 

Jyn couldn't place the species but it was refreshing to see someone who wasn't human. 

Fletch glanced back at Jyn and flashed her a friendly smile. Jyn wasn't very accustomed to friendliness, what with the way she'd been raised, so the gesture made her too uncomfortable to reciprocate it. The sergeant didn't seem to mind and flicked a few switches on the dash. “Don’t mind the droid, it gets very grumbly at times and will probably fuss over you if you get hurt.”

Jyn paused, then looked up at Fletch. “Sergeant--”

“Just call me Mikenz,” they interjected. “‘Sergeant’ sounds too serious.”

“It  _ is  _ a war,”Jyn pointed out. Mikenz gave her another smile but this time it was grim and small. She hesitated. “Do you trust Cassian?”

“Do you?”

Jyn laughed bitterly. “Is that a trick question?” she sputtered. “Of course I don't. Not really.”

The warmth had almost entirely disappeared from Mikenz’s eyes. “You're gonna have to, kid,” they resolved, “even if you ditch this place and live on a farm somewhere on the very edge of the Outer Rim.”

“The only thing I'm trusting him with right now is not recruiting me and I don't entirely believe that's the smartest decision,” Jyn argued. “If he can prove his mettle I might reconsider.”

“The captain’s a good man, Erso,” Mikenz said over their shoulder as they put on the comm headset. They nodded towards Cassian, who climbed back into the U-wing and made his way to the cockpit. “I suggest you reconsider soon.”

Cassian gave them a look. “What?”

“Not you, Captain, sorry. Erso.” Jyn was glad they referred to her formally and didn't call her by her first name. It felt too intimate for the world she lived in, especially when, for some reason, Cassian immediately called her “Jyn”. 

Only her parents and Saw had ever called her by her first name, and so Cassian's frequent use of it foretold of a bond she was strongly opposed to forming. He may have been a good person to the Rebellion but to Jyn he was an enigma, a silent, moody, morally gray ghost of someone who might have smiled more often once. She didn't trust him as far as she could throw him--which, she was sure she could throw him pretty far--and after this mission she was going to sneak out and leave. 

Jumping into hyperspace, Jyn realized she wasn't a pilot. She couldn't just  _ leave  _ Yavin 4, not on her own. And, no matter how streetsmart she was, she was no mechanic. She couldn't reprogram a protocol droid to fly her to the far reaches of the galaxy. With a heavy sense of foreboding it occurred to Jyn that if she wanted to leave the captain behind she'd have to bring him with her first.

The prospect was distasteful.

Cassian tossed her her truncheons Draven had confiscated earlier. “Try to get some rest,” he said, uninterested. “You're gonna need it.”

“Why?”

“It's a long way to Lothal.”

 

Cassian was always cold, Jyn quickly realized. It didn't matter how warm a planet was, you could guarantee him to be wearing more layers of clothing than everyone else. 

It suited his closed-off personality, she thought. 

Still, Lothal wasn't  _ that _ cold, not even at the poles. Around the equator it was fairly balmy. Here, in the tundra of the southern hemisphere of the planet, only a fine layer of snow covered the ground and the odd oblong rock formations that protruded from the earth like the hives of some type of colony-based insect. Jyn actually kind of liked the cold. It was biting enough that she had to pull her scarf around her nose and mouth in an effort to breathe without pain, but not nearly as cold as Hoth was rumored to be. 

Cassian, the living icicle he was, was having a much less fun time. He stepped into the grass from the transport behind Jyn, and mumbled some muffled obscenity about how “there are too many cold planets in this blasted galaxy.” She turned around and almost laughed out loud. 

He was bundled up in a giant knee-length parka whose hood was about the size of his entire torso and lined with thick fur. He looked ridiculous. Jyn snickered. “Are you really that cold?”

Cassian glared out at her from the depths of the hood, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. “That's classified information,” he quipped. 

Even Mikenz, who was likely cold-blooded and had an excuse, was less bundled up than the captain. They grinned. “We figure his bones and heart are permanently frozen, turning his blood cells into icebergs,” they teased. “He's got no way to warm himself up.”

Cassian made a face Jyn almost thought was a pout before reminding herself that not even  _ he _ could be more than disappointed, inconvenienced, or mildly amused. “Fest was a cold,  _ cold _ place,” he grumbled. “You're probably not wrong.”

Jyn ignored him for the most part and rubbed her gloved hands together to warm her bare fingers. Lothal was a quiet agricultural planet with a few large city centers, some reasonably weakened Imperial bases, and the remnants of stormtrooper occupation. It  _ had _ been experiencing something of a comeback in terms of Imperial forces underneath some new, esteemed admiral, but even then there wasn't a lot going on. For a moment or two, Jyn closed her eyes and accustomed herself to the whisper of the wind in the grass, to the cries of avians and the sound of peace. It reminded her of Lah’mu. 

Jyn opened her eyes. Now was not the time to open that cave, nor was she sure she'd ever decide to. Lah’mu and her parents and Saw Gerrera and her many alternate identities were buried under dust and mold and darkness back there and she didn't want to uncover them. She forced it all back into the farthest corner of the cave and pretended it wasn't there. 

And yet, her hand found its way to her crystal necklace nonetheless, the only piece of her mother she had left. Begrudgingly, she let one sliver of light into the cave, aware that for now she couldn't fill it with cement and pebbles. She'd take care of it later. 

Behind her Cassian struggled to remain upright after stepping on a hidden patch of ice. He regained his balance after a moment and stepped into the grass, and folded his arms. “Alright, we're not here to sightsee,” he said briskly. 

Jyn still didn't turn around. “I mean, to be honest, we kind of are,” she shrugged. 

“There's a difference between sightseeing and reconnaissance.”

“Not much of one.”

Cassian rolled his eyes and stepped forward. “Come on, it's about a kilometer off that way. They shouldn't have detected us at that distance, but it's a bit of a hike.”

“How about a leisurely stroll? This terrain doesn't look too difficult to cross,” Jyn put in. 

Cassian ignored her and pulled his hood down as if in an effort to look less ridiculous (it didn't help much, Jyn decided) and started off to the west with purpose. Jyn followed, rather grateful for this new silence. It wasn't like Cassian was talkative, she just didn't really want to converse, because whenever he talked she couldn't help but reply. It was as if she strived to negate every word he said, like a child who'd been spoiled and practically hated everyone and whose only real joy in life was giving adults grief. 

Jyn still didn't like him that much. 

It wasn't long before Jyn and the others were crouched in the grass, Cassian going over the plan once more. He was saying something about being quick and invisible and Jyn would you please listen I don't want you blowing ANYTHING up okay, but Jyn ignored him, instead focusing on the base itself and the movement of troopers around it. She gripped Cassian's shoulder and shook it lightly, pointing out a tall black droid that was patrolling the perimeter of the base with an officer and a pair of stormtroopers. 

“Cassian,” she hissed, “you see that droid?”

“Yeah, what about it? It's just a protocol droid.”

“No, it isn't,” Jyn argued. “They're brand new, just started using them a few months ago and they haven't reached all the systems yet, which is why you didn't see any on your last mission. I had to intercept a shipment of these a couple weeks ago. They're security droids, Cassian. They're heavily armored and can throw three stormtroopers across a room at once without any trouble.”

Cassian’s normally grim expression looked a little more hopeless. “Right, then we'll have to make sure it doesn't see us,” he said with a huff. “Just like we would without it there. Surely with something like that they'd need only one?”

“No, where there's one there's plenty more. We're gonna have to be more than invisible, captain. We need to be  _ non-existent. _ ”

“Great. Any more complications anyone would like to point out?”

Jyn raised her hand a little in the grass, giving Cassian a dark look when he groaned. “As I'm sure you've noticed they're monitoring air traffic, but they've got way too many troopers here for it to be simple day-to-day procedure. They're probably watching for that other Rebel cell, which, if you want more of their assistance later, means we'll have to take out the new communications tower and lower their numbers significantly.”

Mikenz stared at her. “Those aren't our orders, Erso,” they said slowly. “And making a transmission back to base would surely be noticed if they're on as high alert as you say they are. We can't risk deviating from our current path just so you can blow something up.”

“Luckily for you,” Jyn quipped, handing the quadnocs back to Cassian, “I'm not a rebel anymore, so if I do it  _ right  _ and you two--three--don't get in the way, it won't be linked back to you in particular. At most they'll only blame the local cell--and/or me--and you'll have less of a mess on your hands.”

“But that's--”

“Putting the needs of the many before the needs of the few,” Jyn interrupted. “That's the Rebel motto, isn't it? In a way, I'm helping you. But don't get used to it. Before, even with Saw, it was about  _ me _ . After Mothma lets me go, it's about  _ me _ .”

Cassian held up his hands. “Right now it's not about  _ anyone _ ,” he hissed, exasperated. “For now we're gonna stick with the plan. Jyn, you're with me, Mikenz and C1 will take the south and west. If I decide we need to take out their comm tower, we will.” He looked Jyn in the eyes with all the tiredness and nearly-not-there patience of a parent whose child was simply not understanding that no, they couldn't have that toy and would they please stop screaming. “But unless I make that decision, Jyn, I will not even let you  _ near _ the explosives storage. Do  _ not _ blow ANYTHING up. Got it?”

Jyn gave him a look and huffed. “Fine. But I am not making any promises.” She continued to glare at him, even after he'd turned back to the base.

Was she going to disobey him? Probably. But while blowing up the comm tower was a pleasurable prospect Jyn was after something else. 

That Imperial maggot couldn't hide from her for long. 

* * *

Cassian was glad, this time, that Jyn had all the military experience she did. She shadowed him in complete silence and with his eyes ahead, he wasn't sure if she was still on his tail. For the most part he could only listen for her footsteps, for her breath on his back. And still, she was inaudible.

The only sign she was still following him was the occasional hushed observation or jab at something she thought might bug Cassian. He wondered if she could ever reach a point where all bitter humor she possessed was drowned out by a sense of duty. Reconnaissance was actually a pretty serious job, especially for an Intel officer like Cassian, and yet in spite of this she was always ready to irk him. Ready to joke and argue. 

Cassian figured that was how she made it. She'd already expressed that she'd left hope behind a long time ago, so that couldn't have been what kept her going. No, a simple aversion to her mortality helped her survive. The decision that she wasn't going to die, not until she was ready, made her physically invincible. It was selfish, Cassian thought, but then again Jyn wasn't all about removing herself from the equation unless it was to save her own skin. 

There were a lot of people like that in the galaxy these days who chose not to see the pain around them and go on about their lives. People who could have made a difference but chose not to fight. In a way, Cassian himself had been like that once. It was a brief period of trying to figure things out alone, with no one to help him, until he'd just about given up. 

But not anymore. Everything he did now was for a cause greater than himself, and he doubted Jyn would ever really see things from his point of view. 

Nor did he want to force her to see things his way. She'd probably stab him.

Jyn grabbed his hood and he made a faint strangled noise before she pulled him down next to her. “That officer, in white,” she hissed, pointing to a blue-skinned Imperial conversing with a subordinate. “What rank is he, can you tell?”

Cassian squinted. “Must be that new admiral that has control of the sector,” he whispered. “The organized Rebellion I'm part of just got started, Jyn. I doubt Captain Syndulla’s had time to collect all her intel and present it to Mothma, which means for now this guy's not that important to us. 

“What do you know about him?”

“Not much, just that he's the best admiral in the fleet.”

“Nice. Should we try to take him out when we blow up that tower?”

“If,  _ if _ , Jyn,” Cassian sighed. “ _ If  _ we take out the comm tower it would be practical to try and get rid of him too. But that's still up in the air, need I remind you.”

Jyn rolled her eyes and the pair continued slinking around the corner, Cassian mapping down notable features of the base that would require further Alliance investigation on a datapad. Behind him Jyn poked him in the back. 

“What species is he?” she asked. 

“The admiral?”

“Yeah.”

Cassian shrugged. “Don’t know, why?”

“Well for one I've never seen his kind before, and also he must be  _ very _ respected for the Empire to let a non-human into such a high rank, or even into their ranks  _ at all _ .”

Cassian thought about this. “Let's try not to get acquainted with him.”

There were footsteps up ahead and Cassian pulled Jyn into a different hallway, tucking the two of them in an alcove in the wall. Jyn tried to protest and he clamped a hand over her mouth. A squad of stormtroopers passed by, none the wiser, and once the last one had disappeared from view Cassian let go of Jyn. “Come on,” he hissed. 

Jyn followed without complaint, though she did look indignant about having been shoved into a wall. She rubbed her shoulder and trailed Cassian cautiously, drawing  _ his _ pistol from her holster in case she needed it. 

“Hey, wouldn't it be a good idea to scout out the comm--?”

“No, Jyn,” Cassian sighed. “Right now I'm just looking for weaknesses and information.”

He suspected she raised an eyebrow, and was just barely concealing a victorious tone to her voice. “Information?” she repeated. “Oh, Cassian, I don't know if I can let you do that, you know. It isn't part of the  _ plan. _ ”

Cassian whipped around and Jyn collided with his chest, jumping back and holding up her fists instinctively. He pointed a finger at her. “As captain, I get to change the plan if need be so long as the original objective is accomplished, do you understand?” he hissed. 

Jyn didn't put her arms down. “Unfortunately I do,” she snapped back. “What I  _ don't  _ understand is why  _ you _ need information. If anyone here was gonna be looking for it, it would be me.”

Cassian turned back around and kept on walking. “There's a contact I've got that went missing after our last rendezvous,” he muttered. “I knew I needed to find him because he's our most reliable source of information, but then you mentioned those security droids. I'm going to try and get into the databanks and see if he's in any Imperial prisons. He should have information on who makes the droids, and then from there I can figure out how they work so it'll be easier to avoid them.”

“I think the manufacturer is Arakyd Industries,” Jyn whispered. 

“Which means you don't  _ know _ ,” Cassian pointed out. 

“Remember,  _ I'm  _ the one who intercepted the shipment of those droids,” Jyn argued. “I doubt you'll get any more reliable information from your contact, if he's even still alive.”

“I'll take my chances.”

“You still don't trust me.”

“You've got my gun in your hands and a whole lot of vengeance in your head, plus you're still going on about taking out the new comm tower. Why should I?”

“Haven't shot you yet,” Jyn reasoned grumpily, “though I very well could. And to be fair I don't trust you either, but I'm still following you through this place.”

“You're still gonna blow up that tower,” Cassian stated. 

“Maybe.”

“You're gonna disobey a direct order.”

“I may be in company but I'm on my own now, captain,” she huffed. “I don't need to listen to you, especially when I've got my own agenda like you.”

Cassian stopped. “Your own agenda…?”

“Yeah, but as long as you don't get in the way your Rebellion is safe.”

The captain saved this information for later. It certainly didn't sound like Imperial business, but it was suspicious enough that he'd need to report it. 

They passed a door, which, in horrifying inconvenience, opened at precisely the wrong time. Cassian and Jyn froze, as did the officer in the doorway. He couldn't have been an officer for very long, barely a private. He was probably Jyn's age, in fact, and he looked very confused. Then he reached for a gun at his hip and Cassian shoved him back into his office with Jyn in tow. She snatched the gun from his hand and held both his and hers to the the private’s head. 

The private was babbling something about not shooting him when Jyn put one of her guns between her thighs to free up one hand and slap him. He shut up.

Cassian pinned him against the wall. “Where are your prisoner files located?” he growled.

“Three doors down from the comm tower!” he sputtered.

“I could have told you that,” Jyn muttered behind Cassian. He shot her an exasperated look before turning back to the officer.

“What’s the code to access them?”

“I-I don’t know that!! I only work in Defense, not Criminal Monitoring and Apprehension!”

“So you wouldn’t know if anyone named Tivik was incarcerated,” Cassian huffed. The private shook his head fervently.

“N-no, but if you don’t kill me I won’t tell anyone you were here,” he bargained.

Jyn rolled her eyes. “Whatever, kid. Do you know who manufactures those new security droids?”

“Arakyd Industries,” the private answered immediately, eyes blown wide in fear. Cassian made the mistake of turning to Jyn again, wishing he could forget the giant triumphant smile on her face.

“See?”

Suddenly an alarm blared and stormtrooper footsteps echoed down the hall, closer and closer to the office. Cassian drew his blaster and looked at the private. “You alerted them,” he snarled.

The young Imperial looked even more panicked than before. “I didn’t, I swear!! They must have picked up on you earlier, caught you on camera or something!”

Jyn poked Cassian in the back with a blaster. “Captain, leave him, we’ve got company.”

Cassian groaned and dropped the officer, who scrambled away and hid under a desk. Jyn cocked both her guns and held them up, aiming at the door. Cassian drew his own blaster and did the same, waiting. The door burst open with blaster fire, stormtroopers pouring in.

Cassian wasn’t really aware of Jyn fighting off to his left, but every now and then he caught a blur of dark blue and faded brown moving expertly around laser bolts and thrown fists. When she ran out of ammo in one blaster she tossed the other one to Cassian, broke the empty one over a trooper’s head, and pulled out her truncheons. Spinning them in her hands, she swung one into a trooper’s face while jamming the other under the helmet and breastplate of another soldier, twisting it such an angle that the trooper’s neck snapped.

Cassian hadn’t realized he was staring til a laser bolt grazed his arm and he cried out in pain before firing a shot straight through a stormtrooper’s forehead. Gritting his teeth through the pain, he twisted one stormtrooper’s arm behind their back and used them as a shield while he shot down three more.

Jyn threw two into a wall, clocked another with her right truncheon, and likely ruptured the windpipe of one more with her left.

There was a silence. The private escaped from the solace of his desk and sprinted out of the room and down the hall. 

Cassian waited, dropping his stormtrooper-shield and rubbing the wound on his arm. The nerve endings were fried, but where they were still alive and firing they screamed with pain. It wasn’t the worst he’d ever experienced, but it still certainly hurt. Jyn cocked her head and listened. A distant, timed clanging noise made its way down the hall in a lumbering, casual pattern. But the look in Jyn’s eyes proved that this was not something to be taken lightly.

She backed up, putting away her truncheons and cracking her knuckles. Cassian watched her, rolling his shoulders. “One of those new toys the Empire’s got?” he guessed.

Jyn nodded vaguely. “Yeah, be prepared to get some bones broken,” she answered. As she stepped back Cassian noticed, for the first time in the three or four days he’d known her, a slight limp. She held her leg at an odd angle to make it easier to walk on, but the limp was still there.

Cassian eyed her. “You’ve had a broken leg for  _ two weeks _ and you haven’t done anything about it?!” he exclaimed.

“Those things pack a punch and  _ yes _ , I have done something about it!” she hissed back.

“Like what?”

“Pain-relievers and pretending it’s not there,” Jyn answered sharply. “That’s what I’ve always done for injury, captain. And besides, it’s only my shin. Now focus, because this thing is gonna take a long time to beat.”

“Wouldn’t it go faster if you just...shot it?”

Jyn looked at him. “They’re  _ heavily armored _ , remember? Even if you did get a shot in it could redirect its functions to another part of its body.”

A hulking black mass of metal and servos appeared in the charred doorway, peering down curiously at Jyn and Cassian with round white eyes that swiveled analytically in its sockets. It paused and cocked its head, which, at eight feet off the ground, barely cleared the jagged edge of the exploded entrance.

“Two hostiles detected,” it reported to no one in particular, approaching the two slowly. Somehow, a look of confusion crossed its stolid faceplate. “Though they do not seem to be carrying any form of weaponry besides their fists.

Behind it Mikenz and their droid came running down the hallway and into the room. Mikenz didn’t seem to have registered the giant droid standing in the way because they kept running even when it stuck out one long, lanky arm to intercept them. Their face collided with its fist and they reeled back onto their spine in the floor, staring up at the ceiling in wide-eyed shock. Their nose was bleeding and they had a gash on their forehead.

“That was awesome,” they muttered deliriously. “Let’s do that again.”

Unfazed, the droid looked down at Mikenz and their astromech. “Correction, four hostiles, though one has likely just been concussed and the other addition is merely a discontinued model of astromech.”

C1, in response, made a noise similar to a heavy, prolonged sigh, like it’d gotten this a lot.

Cassian watched the security droid, the beginnings of a  _ brilliant _ plan forming in his mind. If he could just get this thing to stop moving, like firing into the joints and blasting its limbs off, he could get C1 to completely shut it down. Once that was accomplished, he could reprogram it back at Yavin 4 and make some use of it.

“Jyn, I need you to distract this thing,” he muttered askance to her.

She looked at him like he’d just transformed into a Hutt. “You need me to  _ what _ ?”

“Distract it. I’m gonna try and shoot its arms off.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breaking News: Jyn Erso Defies Authority For What Has Got To Be, Unsurprisingly, The Fifteenth Time This Month
> 
> See also: Cassian puts off a massive undertaking in favor of trying to figure out why his (barely qualifies as a) bond with Jyn strongly resembles that of a mother bear and her cub

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a kind of short chapter but it seemed polished off to me so have at it. Next chapter might take a while simply because I didn't think I'd get this far this fast and I don't exactly have a plan yet. The story kind of writes itself and I'll figure it out when I get there.

Cassian, in the four or so days she'd known him, didn't strike Jyn as the kind to make rash decisions. In fact, he seemed vehemently opposed to anything with minimal logic (if any). He was a spy; planning for him was like oxygen in his lungs, it was  _ essential. _

And yet here he was, a hole in his arm, looking for an opening. Jyn didn't know if a security droid could get distracted, and she was tempted to just let it turn Cassian into an unrecognizable pile of mush.

But with the same urge that convinced her to  _ not  _ take his money when rooting through his duffel, Jyn darted in front of him, providing cover and a diversion. The droid’s head rocked back a little on its neck in confusion. “Please do not interfere,” it said without warmth. “It will only be worse for you.”

Jyn ducked out of the way of one its swift, lanky arms and popped back up on the other side. Cassian was out of the droid’s range of sight for now, and Jyn was its current target. “I can handle it,” she countered.

If the droid could squint, she was fairly sure it would. “We'll see,” it said breezily in that pretentious Imperial accent, in that chillingly frank voice.

Behind it, Cassian lined up a shot with his rifle, and fired. The droid’s left arm flew off and landed with a clatter on the floor. There was a pause, and the droid stared at where its arm had been with acute interest. Then it looked at Jyn, and from there, Cassian. “You rebels certainly are clever,” it observed, sounding rather bored. “I did not initially include this in my calculations; I will have to make some adjustments.”

“Good to know,” Cassian muttered.

Jyn had, for the past two weeks, wondered why the security droids only spoke Basic. She assumed it had something to do with the Empire’s xenophobic tendencies, and while that was pretty much right on, she now figured that if one of these things was coming toward you knowing what it was saying was the least of your worries.

The droid took a step toward Cassian and Jyn lobbed a truncheon at its back, hoping to catch its attention. It was only mildly successful as the droid made a noise similar to an irritated sigh and caught the truncheon without even looking at it before closing its fist around it and snapping it in half. “Reinforcements should arrive soon and any attempts you make to shut me down will be futile,” it hummed.

Jyn kicked it in the knee with her good leg. “I thought you  _ were  _ the reinforcements!!” she grunted.

Cassian fired again, taking the droid’s right arm off at the elbow. It made a noise of mild awe and calculation. “Hm. This does change things. You two are more effective than the average rebel tends to be, but not effective enough. I have just called two more units down in case you somehow manage to disable my crucial functions.”

Jyn met Cassian's eyes between the droid’s legs and dashed out of the way of its stub arm, landing wrong on her bad leg. She winced, biting through her lip hard enough to draw blood, but if Cassian noticed he didn't make a show of it. C1 zapped the security droid a few times before the larger of the two kicked it toward the wall. Jyn gritted her teeth. “Why exactly did you want to shoot its arms off?!!”

Cassian stared straight ahead, ducking as it kicked at them. “I wanna repurpose this thing,” he muttered. “Though, looking at it now, maybe this wasn't the best way to do it.”

“No shit.”

Cassian eyed the droid’s legs. “Think we can knock it over?”

“Probably not,” Jyn shrugged. More metallic footsteps sounded into the room from down the hall and she dodged the droid coming at her. “But if you're gonna try, do it quick!”

Cassian watched her as she started to sneak around the droid, ducking every time it kicked at her. “Where are  _ you _ going?!” he hissed.

“Taking care of the other two.” Jyn scrambled to the doorway and pulled a grenade from her pocket, allowing herself a petty sense of satisfaction when she saw Cassian's perplexed and frustrated expression.

“Where did you--”

“Take care, captain!” Jyn saluted and lobbed the grenade at the ceiling, ducking as the explosion brought enough rubble down to keep the two incoming droids from getting in.

And to keep Cassian and the others from getting out.

Better for them, Jyn figured. Cassian might have been able to overpower the security droid now, and Mikenz was safer unconscious in the corner with one disabled droid than the one and two functioning ones.

Also, she had an Imperial to weed out and a comm tower to take down. She couldn't risk them getting in the way.

Jyn brushed some dust off her shoulder and listened for the reinforcements the security droid had called up. They were closer now, running, no doubt because of the explosion. She could hear Cassian yelling her name on the other side of the rubble, combined with the clanging of metal and the fervent buzzing and whistling of Mikenz’s ever faithful astromech.

She ignored them and pulled out two more grenades, waiting. Waiting for the droids to come within range, waiting for one shiny black foot to step around the bend.

Each of her muscles buzzed with energy, with apprehension. Every lesson Saw had taught her, try as she might to forget him, ran through her mind like a program through a computer.  _ Ignore pain, get excited but not giddy. Giddiness will reduce oxygen to the brain and you could pass out. Excitement will block the pain and make you more alert. _

_ Clang, clang, clang. _

Jyn lunged, rolling the live grenades at the droids, and then took off running before they could kick them at her. She felt the explosion before she heard it, the shock wave slamming into her back and knocking her on her face. She curled into a ball, covering her head. Her ears would readjust; a snapped neck would not.

The roar died, and Jyn chanced a look over her shoulder. The droids were nothing more than melted piles of servos and wires, and she figured she had at most eight minutes before more stormtroopers arrived.

She wasted a crucial thirty seconds of that suddenly realizing that they wouldn't cut Cassian and his colleague a lot of slack. He was a spy, he wouldn't tell them anything, and so the best she could hope for him was that they'd cart him off to prison.

Jyn cursed herself and took off toward the databanks. If he was a good rebel, he'd be able to get out of there, with the droid or not.

_ Seven minutes _ .

Jyn pulled out the code she'd nicked from the private when Cassian had him pinned to the wall and pushed the numbers into the pad on the side of the door. A few guards looked up at the sound of it opening, and Jyn tried to duck out of the way before they saw her. Unfortunately, she was too slow, and the guards ran out intercept her.

Jyn quickly incapacitated all three and snuck into the room, edging her way around the corners. Another officer spotted her and before he could even pull out his pistol she jammed her elbow into his throat and smashed his face on the table. She bit her lip.

_ Six minutes. _

Would she need a disguise? No, she decided, but she'd need a data chip. She searched the man's pockets, and when she didn't find one on his person she hefted him off the desk and onto the floor to search through the drawers. She found one in the second drawer and inserted it into the computer.

The chip was full, so she quickly scanned through and wiped it of everything that didn't pique her interest.

Jyn accessed the file that held all of the Imperial staff in this sector.  _ Come on, come on, he's gotta be here somewhere.  _ She'd searched in pretty much every other sector she could reach, and she doubted she'd be able to get to the last few she needed after this.

_ Five minutes _ .

Jyn hissed an obscenity under her breath and pulled the chip out. She'd get her hands on a reader later and go through it. Right now she had to set her charges. 

 

The comm tower looked just like every other comm tower she'd blown up, and, Saw’s words echoing through her head, she placed the charges all around the base, taking out any Imperials that tried to stop her with ease.

The officer that grabbed her around the neck couldn't stop her from pushing the button on her detonator, and he certainly couldn't stop the pieces of shrapnel that lodged themselves in his forehead and eye sockets after Jyn had thrown him off her back.

Her ears rang, buzzed, and her back screamed with pain from the vibroblade the officer had tried to use against her before she'd used him as a shield from the blast. Jyn forced herself to stand, dizzily, her senses bombarded with fire and noise and soldiers. They were running at her, that much she could comprehend, and she didn't have anywhere to escape to.

Usually she didn't have this many complications.

Someone--she thought it was a lieutenant--knocked her to her knees. “Hands in the air,” she ordered, and Jyn, dazed, complied.

She barely registered the roar of engines above her head, the shouting of stormtroopers around her. There were guns going off, blaster fire from the transport and from the troopers, and in the calamity she seemed to have been forgotten. Jyn shook her head, pushing through her pain and bringing her consciousness back to her brain, and stood, grabbing a gun from a fallen soldier. 

Soon enough she'd joined the battle, bracing her sore shoulders from the recoil of the blaster every time it fired. She didn't know when the last trooper had fallen, but suddenly the transport--an Imperial transport, she didn't know or care which model--landed in front of her. She held her blaster up, wary, even though the ship had been firing alongside her just minutes prior.

Cassian stepped out. “Come on!!” he shouted. “Stand out here any longer and none of us are making it off this dustball!”

Jyn hurried onto the transport, ducking as more troopers appeared and fired at them from the rubble. Cassian turned and yelled at the cockpit, “Shut the door, Fletch!!”

Mikenz, sitting in the copilot position, pressed a button and prepped the ship for takeoff. Cassian jogged to the seat next to them and wrenched the steering yoke, pulling the transport into the sky. It groaned and complained metallically, but the captain got it airborne, and it took off toward space.

Jyn stepped over the bits of security droid Cassian somehow managed to steal and gripped his chair, ignoring the feeling of blood trickling down her back. “What about the U-wing?”

“No time to go back for it,” Cassian replied, putting in the coordinates for Base One on the navicomputer. “Standard protocol is to wipe it every time we land anywhere. They won't find us.”

“And the droid?”

Cassian shook his head and made the jump to hyperspace. “Don’t ask. That's a story I'd rather not tell.”

C1 made a noise of agreement in the hull and went back to sorting droid parts. Jyn took a deep breath and felt the wound on her back. It wasn't deep enough for the bacta tank, but it hurt like hell and Jyn, for all her stubbornness, knew when to ask for help. She sighed. “I hate to be asking this, captain, but you wouldn't happen to know where the medpacs are on this particular ship, would you?”

Cassian jabbed a thumb at the wall opposite Jyn. “They’re in that compartment,” he said. “Toss me one of those bacta patches, will you?”

Jyn sorted through the compartment, and handed Cassian what he wanted, plus a bandage. She sat down on the floor and went to work wrapping her middle to keep the bacta from coming off her skin. Her shin was healing, but not quickly enough, and with all she'd been doing on it she begrudgingly guessed she'd need a medic to look at it, which meant staying on Yavin even longer. For now, she took a few more painkillers and wrapped it in a fresh dressing.

The ship was silent save for the quiet roar of hyperspace and the clanging of C1 rearranging the disassembled body of the security droid. Jyn shrugged her shirt back on over her waist and looked up at Cassian, who was staring at the ceiling and leaning back in his chair. She cracked her knuckles.

“Why’d you come back?” Jyn asked. “I don't matter to you. I'm not important to the Alliance, not right now. I know nothing about my bastard father and what he's doing for the Empire, nothing that proves crucial for the survival of the known galaxy. I don't even like you, and you know that.”

She could see his throat working as he swallowed, whether from the weight of the question or simply because he had to, and he put his hands behind his head, still staring at the ceiling. Eventually he sighed through his nose.

“Us war kids gotta stick together, Erso.”

* * *

 

Cassian  _ knew _ , from the moment she pulled a grenade from a pocket he didn't even know she had, that Jyn Erso was not to be controlled by anyone.

She would not take orders from him, she would not take orders from Draven, and she sure as hell wouldn't take orders from Mon Mothma. She had some respect for the woman, that much he could tell, but she certainly wouldn't do what Mothma wanted.

And while the chances of her doing something for her were raised slightly if there was something in it for Jyn, those chances were still very small.

Cassian also had no doubts that Jyn was a capable soldier, especially after the two explosions that followed the collapse of the ceiling she facilitated.

But none of this would get her out of some sort of punishment. She wouldn't get court-martialed, couldn't, as she wasn't part of the Rebellion, but Cassian was fairly sure Draven would come up with something.

Jyn would be ready for it, he hoped. Her silence in the back of the transport could neither confirm nor deny it, and he wondered if what injuries she might have sustained would make her submissive in Draven's presence or downright furious. He figured it'd be the latter.

Cassian knew he was right when he heard the shouting from down the hall. She'd been in the medbay, having her ankle checked out (partly on his request), and Draven thought it timely to tell her exactly what she did wrong and how she'd pay.

The captain sighed. Jyn was, for lack of better comparison, like a wild animal who couldn't be tamed. She was smart, she was dangerous, and she'd help you once, maybe twice, but then she'd be on her own way and you'd never see her again.

At least, that was Cassian's idea of her if she was in good health and the Alliance wanted nothing more to do with her. But she had a fractured shin and he'd just learned of the fresh stab wound in her back, and General Davits Draven of Rebel Intelligence was convinced that Jyn Erso was integral to stopping any weapons of mass destruction the Empire might have had up their sleeve before they were even field tested.

Draven could not be swayed, but neither could Jyn, and Cassian knew one of them would have their way eventually.

“She is a valuable asset to the Alliance,” Draven explained, surprisingly unscathed by Jyn's latest outburst. The only injury she'd managed to give him was the broken arm from a few days prior. “I will admit, she is one of the most dangerous people we've taken custody of, even for a child, and the threat of her being a spy--”

“Is not very big,” Cassian cut in, disinterested.

“Is still very real,” Draven continued with all the frayed patience of someone who had very little time to get anything done. “That girl will need to complete five missions in order for her freedom to even be considered. Even so, keeping her in our custody is almost certainly a guarantee.”

Cassian shook his head, taking a bite of his rations. “She doesn't want to be recruited, General,” he muttered.

“I know she doesn't. That's not going to stop me from giving her an official rank after those five missions are completed.”

Cassian looked at him. “She's gonna shoot you.”

“Let her try.” Draven took a swig of his caf. “Got another job for you, Andor. It's another undercover gig, need you to recruit a TIE pilot for me. Records show he's been sent to reconditioning three times. Another one will be his final offense. I need you to get him out of there and bring him back here within the month. Phoenix Squadron--or what's left of it anyway--just returned from a mission today. There's a chance you'll receive help from Captain Syndulla or Commander Bridger during your time undercover, but don't count on it.”

“What of Jyn?”

Draven gave Cassian a look, one he tried not to think too hard about. “What of her?”

Cassian picked at his food. “You had her go with me on my previous mission,” he shrugged. “Keeping her behind this time? That leg of hers still has to heal, so I assume so.”

Draven sat back in his seat. “After our last episode with her I don't expect her to follow instructions very well, and that won't work on an undercover mission, but she can certainly walk on that leg, so I'll likely send her on some petty errand.”

Cassian nodded, not entirely sure Draven was right about her leg. “Can you give me an extension on that mission? I have a security droid I'm gonna reprogram that could help a lot.”

“You get two days, captain. You're still going even if it's not ready.” The general clapped Cassian on the shoulder and stood, making his way to a Togruta ensign seated at a table on the other side of the mess. Cassian sighed, pushing some vegetables he didn't know the name or origin of around on his plate with his fork. 

Jyn was…peculiar. Always ready to fight, always ready to deny him the last laugh. She did not like him, did not trust him, and after Draven recruited her she'd surely blame Cassian for it. She'd strangle Draven first, but eventually she'd find a way to make Cassian responsible.

Cassian trusted her only not to shoot him, and vice versa. She was volatile and angry and dangerous and as far as Cassian was concerned keeping her on Yavin 4 against her will was a harbinger of disaster.

And yet…and yet, the captain felt obligated to look after her. He felt responsible for her in a way he couldn't explain and he figured that it was because she was barely an adult. She could have turned eighteen in the week he'd known her and he wouldn't have even known and still the five year age gap would have meant nothing to him because he'd assigned himself her guardian.

Cassian dumped his food, lost in thought. Attachments were risky in wartime. So risky the Jedi had forbidden them among their ranks. Granted, the Jedi were a special case and if one became too emotional, too distraught, a very unfortunate series of events was sure to follow. But the same basic concept applied even to Cassian Jeron Andor, a man barely past twenty who'd lost everything at the age of six and didn't really know how to fly an X-wing but could certainly fly a TIE if he needed to. Cassian was a spy, a Fulcrum. He was one of the most important people in the Rebellion and had a larger target on his head as a result, and while he was a competent soldier who'd never once been taken prisoner his chances of dying in the field were higher than the Togruta Draven had directed his attention to over Cassian.

He didn't know exactly how he'd ended up in the medbay. He was sure he was headed to his quarters. Still, he felt Jyn's eyes on him before he saw her, and he was pretty sure she wanted to shoot him.

She was seated on the edge of the cot, her cargo pants rolled up to her knees. A bandage wound its way across her left shin, and under her shirt he could faintly see the raised bump of a bacta patch on her flank. Her hands were also bandaged and she wasn't wearing a hospital gown, something he guessed she violently refused.

Jyn looked tired, Jyn looked wild, Jyn looked  _ angry.  _ The latter of which Cassian was not surprised by at this point; the girl always had the beginnings of a feral snarl on her lips and the hard, fierce eyes of a wildcat.

He smartly chose not to get within eight feet of her, maintaining a respectful distance whilst simultaneously giving himself room to maneuver if she tried to slit his throat. She glared at him. “If you hadn't brought me here--”

“You wouldn't have gotten stabbed in the back or acquired the lovely occupation of what is basically indentured servitude to General Draven, yes, I know,” Cassian interrupted, arms crossed over his chest. “ _ But  _ you did disobey a direct order which in any other situation might have gotten you court-martialed, and given your particular set of circumstances I would not be surprised if that was the preferable outcome for you.”

“You understand that I want to be free of your Rebellion,” Jyn stated. “You understand that I want to be on my own, anywhere but here, doing anything but fighting the Empire. Or fighting for it. You're the only person I know on this planet who can drop me off somewhere in the Outer Rim and pull it off with little to no trouble.”

Cassian's lips curled up in a wry smile. “You know I can't do that,” he said. “It's flattering but you overestimate my abilities and underestimate the seriousness of every single one of my superiors.”

Jyn still looked angry, insulted even, and sat back against her pillow. If the wound on her back stung she didn't show it. “If I didn't know any better, captain, I'd say you threw a joke in there somewhere,” she grumbled.

Cassian shrugged. “It happens sometimes. How's your back?”

“Why do you  _ care _ ?”

“You want me to say I don't.”

Jyn raised her shoulders a little. “I'd prefer it,” she replied stiffly.

“Don't have much else to do around here right now,” Cassian summed up.

Jyn looked at him. “You've got that pile of scrap from Lothal to reprogram.”

The captain looked around the room a little, silently cataloging the number of cots and bacta tanks and medical droids like he had many times before. “I do. Just had a briefing and then lunch too, so those are out of the way. You don't seem up for conversation either, so I figure I'll go get our new friend put back together and leave you to plan your inevitable assault on the general.”

Again, he could feel Jyn's eyes burning into his back as he turned to leave the medbay. He figured that, with a gaze that powerful, he should've burst into flames on the spot.

Cassian reached for the number pad on the side of the door, stopping inches above it when Jyn spoke up from across the room: “Could be worse.”

“What?”

He could almost feel her shrug. “My back. Not the best, but it could be worse.”

Cassian gave her one last look over his shoulder.

“Try not to break out of here til it heals.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> K-2SO finally meets his maker (or re-maker...???), and decides within three seconds of meeting Jyn Erso that he does not like her. The feeling is mutual. Additionally, Jyn kind of wants to fight everyone in the temple and practices remarkable self-restraint, and Cassian has had Enough™ of having to rescue people who don't really like him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was a fun chapter to write, mostly because it introduced K-2 and everyone loves K-2. also, im pretty sure i have an actual plot going now, which is going to start off nicely next chapter (something happens involving a severed arm and dravens general overall disgust for jyn and everything she does), so keep an eye out for that!!
> 
> also some Rebels cameos in this chapter, so watch out for those lol

When K-2SO started up again one of his arms was laying on the floor of a room he was quite certain he had never seen before. His legs were more or less attached and his left arm seemed to have sustained some sort of damage judging by the carbon scoring, but to his utter confusion he could not remember  _ how  _ or  _ when _ . He looked a little closer, testing the joints. The arm appeared to be the only firmly attached limb on his body; his legs were a work in progress and obviously his right arm wasn't even close to being usable at this current moment in time. 

K-2SO looked around. The building was dark but that alone couldn't tell him what time of day it was or what planet he was on. However, there was very little movement anywhere and so the chances of it being night were sixty-three point seven five percent. Humidity was at seventy-five point two six, but the planet was also very warm, which meant he was likely on a jungle planet. 

The droid felt some sense of irritation. There were at least eighty-four known jungle planets in his memory, and sixty-seven of them could harbor most forms of sentient life. He could be on any one of those sixty-seven planets, as only a sentient life-form could rebuild him from whatever damage he'd acquired. 

Or reprogram him for that matter. Running a diagnostic, he found that things had been changed. He didn't know what they'd been changed from, not anymore, but they'd most certainly been tampered with. 

There was a ninety-eight point six repeating percent chance that it had been done by the human that slumped over in the desk chair next to K-2SO, sitting backwards with his arms over the back of the chair and his legs bent loosely on the sides. He was sleeping heavily, dark hair falling over his closed eyes, and he had grease and oil smeared on his hands and shirt. 

K-2SO’s optical sensors flickered. “Hello.”

The man woke with a start and nearly fell off his chair, yelling what translated to, “Kriff!!!” in Festian as he did so. Regaining his bearings he eyed the droid. “You're awake.”

K-2SO cocked his head. “ _ I'm  _ awake,” he said sarcastically. “I should be saying the same to you.”

The man watched him carefully. “I sincerely hope you have no urge to dismember me,” he said slowly. 

“Not that I can tell,” K-2SO shrugged. “There is a very good chance you have something to do with that.”

An immense wave of relief seemed to wash over the man before an expression unreadable to K-2SO clicked into place. “Good, good. Let's get those legs tightened up and put your arm back on.”

As he made his way to K-2SO’s side the droid watched him. “Will my previous masters come looking for me?” he asked. 

“Probably not,” the man answered, adjusting the hip joints. “If they do you can snap their bones without breaking a sweat, so I'm not too worried.”

“I am physically incapable of sweating, sir,” K-2SO pointed out, confused. “As an inorganic sentient I am not made to--”

“It's a figure of speech, Kay,” the man interrupted, laughing a little to himself. 

“Kay? That is not my identification code. I am K-2SO.”

“It's a nickname. You're part of the Alliance now. Might as well have some form of individuality to start off.”

“What is  _ your _ name then?” K-2SO queried, adjusting to having his moniker shortened. “I assume you have one, nearly everyone does. The chances of you not having one are approximately one in three hundred thousand four hundred fifty-six point seven.”

The man looked up at him. “Cassian. My name’s Cassian Andor,” he said. 

“And you are a captain? Unless that jacket belongs to someone else, Cassian Andor.”

Cassian hefted the other arm into place. “No, that's mine,” he grunted, struggling to hold the arm in place and reach for his wrench at the same time. Kay handed it to him and he muttered a thanks. 

“Are you my new caretaker, Cassian Andor?”

Cassian opened his mouth to answer when another voice rang out across the room. “If anything you'll be  _ his _ , droid.”

Kay looked toward the new voice. “Are you implying that this man is incompetent?” he asked, doubting. 

The new voice was a man at least twenty years older than Cassian, tall, broad-shouldered, with rust-colored hair and a face Kay could already tell wasn't the friendliest. He shook his head. “Captain Andor is a perfectly competent spy, but he needs a mother,” the man quipped, humor almost non-existent. “You'll be perfect for him.”

Cassian didn't smile, and K-2SO figured their relationship was out of necessity, as typically humans laughed and smiled in response to banter. “I don't need a mother, general,” he sighed. “I've been just fine without one for most of my life.”

“Maybe it can keep that Erso girl in check then,” the general responded, unfazed. “She's already knocked out three medics and given another a bloody nose, not to mention my arm is still broken.”

Cassian looked his superior in the eye. “It _ was  _ your idea to bring her back here, sir,” he shrugged. “And to recruit her against her will.”

Now the general looked irritated. It pleased Kay. “We need to keep her under our surveillance, Andor. If she  _ is  _ loyal to the Empire--”

K-2SO was seventy-three percent sure he heard Cassian mutter, “She probably isn't.”

“--we need to stop her before she even gets started,” the general continued on regardless. “Her relation to Galen Erso is too much of a threat.”

Cassian's face was unreadable for the most part, but Kay guessed he'd at least trip the general on purpose if the repercussions were small enough. “And if she isn't Imperial?”

“We need all the help we can get, captain.” The general looked resigned. 

Kay tilted his head. “You do not like this Erso girl very much, do you?” he observed. 

The general didn't answer, only nodded his head at Kay, focusing on Cassian. “You program this thing like that 3PO unit Senator Organa drags around?”

“Draven, this ‘thing’ can crush your femur simply by closing his hand around your leg,” Cassian huffed. “He's no protocol droid; C-3PO would probably run away from K-2 at first glance.”

“That droid doesn't run, it shuffles with urgency,” Draven mumbled. “No matter; personality means nothing if it can blend in and cover your back, captain.”

“A little personality is nice,” Cassian murmured. Draven seemed finished with the conversation and began to walk off. 

“Make sure that thing's finished by departure at 1300 hours, Andor,” he called. “Gives you five hours to complete the reprogram and brief it on the mission.”

“Yes sir.”

K-2SO looked at Cassian. “You're awfully polite to him for not liking him.”

Cassian plugged something into Kay's head and for a moment certain security protocols and programs flickered on the inside of his optical sensors. The captain sighed, “Normally there's more contention. I'm too tired to argue right now.”

“That is true; upon an initial scan your body displayed rather remarkable amounts of exhaustion,” Kay said, matter-of-fact. “You do not sleep often, captain. You may want to try sleeping more.”

Cassian blinked at Kay. He looked like he'd never considered that before. Then he shook his head. “No, there's no time. Not in the war I'm fighting.”

Kay processed this.

“Huh.”

* * *

Jyn hated General Draven.

She hated his sour, bitter face, his thinning reddish hair, the elitist manner in which he carried himself. She hated him for thinking himself better than her, for treating her like an idiot, like a child. 

She  _ hated _ him. 

She hated Cassian a little less. 

Somehow, in her heart of hearts, she found herself deciding this was Cassian's fault. Truth be told, there was no evidence to prove him the cause of her misadventures with Draven besides his bringing her to Yavin 4, and even so it'd been primarily orchestrated by the general himself who thought it prudent to demand information of her that she didn't have. Still, Jyn needed to place blame, and there was so much hatred pinned on Draven’s pill-shaped head that she had little room for it. 

Cassian, on the other hand, was like a backup data chip. There was extra space left that would've held her disdain for him had he not come back for her on Lothal; as it was, she'd not yet decided what entirely to do with that information but she knew it made her uncomfortable. She could convince herself that her extra time in custody was his fault, and if she was lucky she could convince him of that too. 

But Luck had never had much appreciation for Jyn, apparently deciding she was important enough to keep alive but not enough to enjoy the life she'd been given. More than once she'd thought about popping the cyanide pill Saw had given her into her mouth, crushing it between her molars and giving Luck (and maybe the Force, which, on occasion, wasn't a massive bag of dicks) the biggest, most flamboyant middle finger she could. 

The only things that kept her from doing that was the crystal that sat, sharp and warm, on her chest under her shirt, and her childish need to find the man in white and take a dull, rusty metal shard to his chest. Let the fragment’s oxidized point find his heart and let him bleed out slowly, painfully, on whatever uncomfortable surface she could find. 

That worm deserved to die screaming, deserved to die choking on his own blood. A shot from a blaster was too clean, too humane. Jyn wanted, foolishly, pettily, to see his pristine, sinless cape turning crimson with everything the man had done to her. 

Jyn hated  _ him  _ most of all. 

Still he eluded her, whether he knew it or not. Still he hid in his little office somewhere, commanding her father about like a maestro with a wand, concocting weapons beyond her comprehension. Weapons that, undoubtedly, would be a guillotine to the Rebellion’s head and a funeral pyre to its body. 

She didn't know what they were making, not yet. She didn't even know  _ if  _ they were making anything, though the possibility of some super-weapon being built was very high. It was the Empire; they ruled through fear and intimidation, so why  _ wouldn't  _ they build something to inspire terror in every single sentient in the galaxy? 

Jyn rubbed her thumb across the crystal hanging from her neck. That wasn't her problem, not now. She had a feeling it would be, at some point, but not today. No, her biggest problem right now was how to evade the guards posted by the door of the medbay. Cassian, confusingly, had warned her not to escape until her back had healed. Maybe in humor, but it was a warning nonetheless, a sign that he was somehow on her side. 

No time to think about that, she chided herself. She needed to get out and find a reader for the datachip she'd stolen. She needed to find the man who made himself feel important by wearing a most inconvenient long white cape. 

She watched the guards. “Could either one of you tell me where the refresher is?” she called. 

One of them, a sour-looking Mon Calamari, lazily inclined his head at her, disinterested. “One of us would have to attend you to the door, and wait there til you're done,” he said in a gravelly voice. “So unless you really can't hold it you, with your ridiculous human sense of modesty, will have to sit there and wait.”

Jyn frowned. Just then, the door opened, and to her disbelief an Imperial security droid tried to walk in, looking surprised at the two guards in front of it. Jyn hopped off the bed and grabbed a blaster from one of the guards, fully intending to shoot the droid in the head. Her leg screamed in pain but she ignored it, forcing herself to aim. 

The droid, still looking confused, hit a guard out of the way as if its initial orders were unclear, and delivered a slap to the tender face of the Mon Calamari, knocking him out. Cassian-- _ where'd  _ he  _ come from?! _ \--was shouting something in the background, but the droid carried on regardless, and when Jyn took a step towards it it grabbed her around the neck with one hand, lifted her in the air, and tossed her onto the ground like dirty laundry. 

Jyn fought to find her breath, gasping, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes from the healing stab wound in her back. Cassian's voice barely registered with her. He sounded exasperated. 

“Kay!!” The blur in her eyes cleared up and Cassian was standing over her, rubbing a hand over his face. He muttered something--a curse, maybe, or a prayer to some god for patience--in a language she didn't know. “These are our  _ friends _ …”

The droid cocked its head. “The small angry one  _ attacked  _ me, Cassian,” it-- _ he _ , Jyn realized--countered. He sounded offended. 

Cassian spread wide his arms--in the short time she'd known him she noticed he tended to talk with his hands--and gestured vaguely to the two unconscious rebels on the ground. “That doesn't mean you have to beat up the others, Kay!”

“It seemed logical to assume they were with her,” Kay argued. 

Cassian sighed. “I'm gonna have to add a few more patches on our way,” he grumbled. He bent down and offered Jyn a hand. 

Jyn eyed him and swatted his hand away, shoving herself off the floor with more effort than she would've liked. Even so, Cassian steadied her with a hand on her shoulder when she wobbled, and with one sharp look from her after she'd righted herself he backed off. Jyn looked at the droid. She remembered now, this must've been Cassian's new toy. Still, she tilted her chin at him and looked Cassian in the eye. 

“This your new friend?”

Cassian opened his mouth to speak and Kay interrupted him. “General Draven thinks I am to be Cassian's new mother,” he said, confused. “I do not understand.”

Jyn raised an eyebrow at Cassian. “Is that so?” she teased, barely concealing a laugh. 

Cassian gave her a dark look. “No, and we're gonna be late, Kay.”

Kay watched him. “Is this your girlfriend that I just almost incapacitated?” he asked. 

Cassian blanched. “No!”

Jyn couldn't blame him; the mere notion of ever getting together with Cassian, no matter how nice he was to look at, was severely unpalatable. She made a face. “That's disgusting.”

Cassian rubbed a hand over his face. “She's seventeen.”

“Eighteen,” Jyn muttered. It occurred to her, without surety, that the chances of her birthday having passed recently were fairly high. 

“Good, because I do not like her,” Kay sniffed, ignoring her. “This is Jyn Erso then? Your ‘problem’?”

Jyn raised both her eyebrows at Cassian this time. He shrugged. “That's what Draven calls you,” he provided feebly. “Now  _ come on _ , Kay, we need to get going.” Kay made a noise similar to a begrudging sigh and followed him out of the room. Jyn watched them leave, Cassian muttering, “I mean,  _ really _ , you don't need to explore every single room in the temple. I'm gonna have to work on your respect for privacy.”

Kay sounded hurt. “This is a militaristic environment, captain. I should assume privacy is among the least of your concerns.”

And then their bickering faded into the distant roar of the base’s typical controlled calamity. Some part of Jyn felt insulted that they were leaving without her before she remembered that  _ no, I don't like Cassian that much _ and  _ no, I definitely don't like that droid _ . 

Jyn massaged her back, rubbed at her temples which pulsed with pain thanks to K-2SO. Chip reader, she needed a chip reader. And where was the Alliance most likely to have chip readers? 

Intelligence briefing room. 

She wrinkled her nose at the thought. Draven would be there, likely. And tangling with him was not high on her to-do list. She'd rather accompany Cassian on his misadventures or sit in the middle of Tatooine’s sun-baked oceans of sand then deal with Draven. The prospect of punching him in the face was marginally better, but still not preferable. 

At least she could trust him to be consistent, more than she trusted Cassian as a whole. She may have liked Cassian better but Draven’s reliable jackassery was something she could predict. Cassian was a spy, Cassian lied for fun. Cassian could make an interrogation feel like a night on the town. 

Cassian was a sight for sore eyes, one she didn't mind looking at, which was a dangerous thing that sort of made her want to hit him. At least Draven wasn't particularly pleasant to behold, which made it easier for Jyn to look him in the eye so she could properly intimidate him. 

It still didn't work very well, but it worked better than it did with Cassian, who always regarded her attempts at asserting dominance with the oddly amused raising of an eyebrow or quirk of his lips that, left unchecked, could have grown into a genuine smile. It drove her crazy. 

Jyn broke out of her reverie. The bacta seemed to have a distracting effect on her, getting her lost in her thoughts instead of committing stealthy acts of skulduggery. The exasperating monkeyshines the rebels had to endure that came with Jyn's presence on Yavin were put on hold (fortunately for them) due to her sudden bouts of drug-induced introspectiveness and analyzations of the people around her.

Action. Action was what Jyn was good at, not philosophy. She needed to get moving. 

She wasn't surprised when she got caught mere feet from the entrance of the briefing room. No, what surprised Jyn was how far she'd gotten before someone took notice. 

Finding the briefing room wasn't hard; she just had to follow various Intelligence officers and get directions from a clueless ensign here and there. It wasn't til she'd almost broken in that someone decided to do something about her presence, and pinned her to a wall. 

He was actually not very tall, about Cassian's height at most, which still wasn't very big for a man. He reminded her vaguely of Draven, and there was the name “Kallus” sewn into his collar. Kallus, callous. Jyn wondered briefly if he was as thick as his name suggested. 

But the calm, sure way in which he spoke to her suggested otherwise. He talked like Cassian, and Jyn  _ knew _ he had to be an Intelligence officer. 

“And what may you be doing this close to the briefing room, Miss Erso?” he asked smoothly. His accent was undeniably Imperial. A defector? Probably, if he was trusted enough to be allowed the role of commander as the insignia on his chest suggested. Then again, he sounded so much like a spy that he could have been a long term double-agent. 

She raised an eyebrow at him, challenging. “They wouldn't give me a data chip reader, and I figured if they were anywhere in this mausoleum they'd be here.” She wasn't lying. 

This time Kallus raised an eyebrow. “First off, this is a temple.”

“Well, it smells like many somethings died in here,” Jyn countered. 

He ignored her. “Second, where are your guards?” he demanded gently, something she thought impossible to achieve. 

Jyn's hopes rose. She wouldn't be able to do anything massively humiliating to Cassian, but she could cause him  _ some  _ grief, if she was going to be stuck here for a while. “As it were, Captain Andor’s new pet knocked them out. In defense probably, he seemed very surprised that they were there, but that Mon Calamari might need a lot of painkiller.”

“So he inadvertently gave you a chance to escape,” Kallus stated plainly. 

“Guess so, commander,” Jyn shrugged. “But if the truth is what you want from me, literally all I'm doing is grabbing a data chip reader.”

“Why?” He sounded more defensive this time. 

“If you care that much about an Empire-hater selling your info to the very government she wants to decimate get rid of me and send me on my way,” Jyn sneered. “I'll just get a reader somewhere in the neighboring system.”

“Draven has his reasons for keeping you here and while I for one agree with launching you off this planet as soon as possible, I'm to follow orders,” Kallus sighed. “What's on the data chip?”

“Don't really know but it's all Imperial,” Jyn shrugged. “I pulled it out of a drawer back in the base on Lothal.”

“The very base you weren’t supposed to create a scene in, a scene we have every reason to believe was instigated by you,” Kallus sniffed.

“I didn’t do  _ all _ of it, they found us and we had to protect ourselves…”

“Whatever. Give me the chip and let  _ me _ look over it. I’ll tell you what I find. Whatever you’re looking for has got to be there.”

Jyn furrowed her brow, confused. “You’re...helping me?”

Kallus gave her a curious look. “A few rebels taught me some valuable lessons, Erso,” he replied steadily. “I’m not letting you escape of course, but I’ll help you find what you’re looking for. Come, I’ll make sure you get back to the medbay without Draven ripping off your head.”

Jyn watched him carefully. “How do I know you’re not gonna turn me in?”

“I don’t have a reason to turn you in and I’m trusting that you told the truth when you said Andor had technically freed you,” Kallus murmured. “You’ll still want to be careful though. I hear Draven’s hellbent on recruiting you.”

* * *

 

If he could control it, Cassian didn't let things go wrong. The last time something went wrong at fault of his own was his very first mission at the age of eighteen. 

His “lullaby” pill had remained on his person at all times since then, just in case. 

But this was something entirely new. Never had he blown his cover so fast, and while technically it wasn't his fault, it also was for bringing Kay with him in the first place. 

Kay's mannerisms were endearing and he provided reliable backup but his reprogram allotted for…unwanted things to slip out. In some ways it was similar to an innocent child. 

However, Cassian was not prepared to be a father to a droid who barely understood sarcasm when it wasn't coming from the droid himself. Kay had revealed Cassian's intentions halfway into the third day, changing the plan entirely. 

Now, running to his ship with Kay and the TIE pilot in tow, Cassian swore to himself and vowed to add a patch to Kay that would prevent unwanted chatter under Imperial surveillance. Behind him, the pilot yelled something about Cassian's “undercover mission”, and he ignored him. They could save conversation for when they were in hyperspace. 

The jump to hyperspace was rough, and the journey within was short and bumpy. The engines, having been thoroughly damaged, cut out and the ship tumbled into space. The only thing that stayed stationary during this unplanned spin cycle was Kay, who activated the magnetic clamps on his feet and remained, ever faithful, at the helm. 

Cassian, on the other hand, was quite certain he'd ruptured his spleen. At least, it felt like it. The defector was currently upside-down in a pile of supply crates, muttering something about possibly broken bones. 

Cassian raised an arm and gestured vaguely at Kay from his place on his back on the deck. “Kay,” he breathed, “estimated location?”

“Far enough from that planet that we are out of Imperial space,” Kay answered. “But we  _ are  _ in neutral space, and the closest planet is riddled with pirates.”

“Florum?”

“Do not think so, sir. We appear to have crashed, for lack of a better word, in a system bordering the Unexplored Regions. It is devoid of any resources of value, and Holonet or communication connections of any kind are spotty at best, so the only information about this planet I can pull up is its  _ breathtaking  _ overall criminal record. Really, captain, you should--”

“Thank you, Kay,” Cassian groaned. 

The defector waved a hand. “Is this how you do rescue missions? Relatively average-looking guy with a dangerously talkative droid for a pet…Rebellion’s finest!”

Cassian wasn't one to find any use in defending his honor, but the defector was also being plain ungrateful. “Last mission I compromised was my first, sergeant.”

The sergeant sat up in the crates with effort. “And how long ago was that, captain?” he leered. “Your superiors promote you based on good looks alone?”

Cassian didn't bother to get up off the floor. “Five years ago,” he sighed. “And as your commanding officer I suggest you shut up. Kay won't hesitate to break your bones.”

“Seems counter-intuitive to me, hurting one of your own,” the pilot smirked. 

Cassian sat up and looked him in the eye. “Didn't think that when you registered for the Imperial flight academy, did you?” The pilot stiffened a little, paling. Cassian wanted to smile; the best part of his job was making people uncomfortable. Instead he kept his face deadly blank, staring the sergeant down. “Didn't think so,” he grunted, pushing himself off the floor. “The Empire’s worse, sergeant. I've heard Vader kills people who don't do their jobs correctly and immediately assigns their position to the person next to them. The Rebellion’s friendlier.”

“Does that weigh them down, though?” the pilot challenged, pride wounded. 

“I can always put you back where I found you, sergeant. Once this bird is flying again, it won't be too hard.”

The pilot was quiet after that. 

Cassian approached Kay. “Is there enough of a signal to reach Base One?” he asked. 

Kay seemed to think about this. “If it's short, yes, as we have another problem.”

“ _ What _ problem?”

Kay looked at him. “With heavy damage to both the sub-lights and the hyperdrive, the fuel lines have been ruptured,” he explained. “We are losing fuel fast, and the battery can only sustain us for so long. Any calls for help will drain power considerably.”

Cassian swore. “Lovely. Kay, make a call to Base. Keep it short and urgent. You know which codes to use.”

“Yes sir. Where are you going?”

Cassian shrugged off his Imperial jacket and tossed it aside. “Gonna see what I can fix.”

 

Help had arrived sooner than anticipated in the form of Captain Hera Syndulla and her trusty freighter-turned-war-vessel, the  _ Ghost _ . Apparently she'd been on a mission nearby, running errands (as she put it). Cassian had never had much faith in the Force, but now he was beginning to reconsider. 

Hera had offered only smiles and compassion, yet put off a powerful vibe that made even him feel smaller despite being a good foot taller than her. The defector only quieted further in her presence, speaking only when she asked him questions on the way back to Yavin. Cassian couldn't deny that she was pretty, but in a motherly way that made him long, childishly, for his own parents. 

If she picked up on it, she didn't show it. 

When they arrived on Yavin 4, Cassian was rather relieved to usher Kay off to maintenance, as the droid had been conversing with Hera’s astromech Chopper the entire trip back and it had become annoying fast. 

However, his trek to maintenance was short and more painful than one would expect a normal walk to be, as Jyn ambushed him and pinned him to the wall. Kay immediately reached out an arm to pull her off but Cassian held up an arm. 

Jyn, infallibly, looked angry as ever. 

Cassian looked down at her. “How did you get out?”

“Your friend Kallus is more forgiving than Draven or the guards he assigned me,” Jyn answered, not breaking eye contact. “You knew Draven was planning to recruit me and you didn't tell me. Why?”

He raised an eyebrow, calmly. Internally he was acutely aware of how quickly she'd be able to kill him and it frightened him. “With all due respect, Jyn, when I received the news you weren't exactly of the mind to hear it. You…never are, actually.”

Jyn pressed her forearm harder against his clavicle. “And?”

“There's no ‘and’, Jyn. First of all, there's only so much a soldier can do to change a general's mind before it stops being input and starts becoming treason. Second, there's no real reason for me to help you with anything.”

“But you have.”

“Yes.”

“So what does that mean, captain?” Jyn hissed. “You're going to slip me an extra credit here and there for dessert in the mess?”

“It means, Jyn,” Cassian replied, “that you're gonna have allies in me and Kay from here on out, understood? And while we can't set you free we can certainly try to make living here easier for you.”

Jyn's hard green eyes searched his face. “I'll still take the floor over the cot, but thank you.”

“So you met Kallus?”

“What does it matter?”

“Caught you on your way to Intel, correct?” Jyn looked slightly taken aback. “Figures. He never goes into the medbay unless his friends are there. Why were you trying to sneak in?”

Jyn sized him up. “Needed a data chip reader,” she said. “Trying to find a ‘sinless’ architect who steals dreams and realizes them.”

“Kallus took it.”

“Kallus read it and found the man I've got a big red target on.”

Cassian nodded. “You know you have to stay now, no matter how many of us are opposed. You're gonna need a team and an assigned mission to kill this man, and you can only get that by accepting Draven’s offer, even if it is mostly indisputable.”

“Not so fond of Target Practice having my back, but thanks.”

“The feeling is mutual, Jyn Erso,” Kay replied. 

Jyn released Cassian and picked at a scab on her knuckle. “For the record, I hate every single person on this base, captain.” She paused. “But I hate you a little less.”

“Thanks.”  
  
Jyn watched him and sighed begrudgingly. “When do I start?”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jyn comes to accept her life as a member of the Alliance if only to make things more convenient for herself, and Cassian struggles more than he'd like to in figuring out how Jyn works.

The Zeltron’s severed arm hit the surface of the holotable with a stomach-turning, wet  _ thunk _ , and Jyn stepped back to admire her work.

Draven’s perpetual expression of disgust in her presence deepened into something displaying near indescribable revulsion and Jyn smirked. One would think a weathered veteran like Draven would be accustomed to the gory realities of war, but maybe not.

Jyn folded her arms. “That chip you wanted is in her arm,” she said briskly. “Wouldn't give it to me and I didn't have time to dig it out.”

Draven lightly pinched the cold forefinger of the arm and pulled it close, running a scanner across the arm's length. “And it was faster to cut off the arm?”

“I had a vibroblade.”

Draven raised his eyes to her for a moment and looked back down. “What of Major Nora?”

“Collateral damage, sir. She'd been dead a good ten minutes before I retrieved her…the, ah, chip.”

“Shame,” Draven muttered. “How?”

“Stormtrooper missed, as per usual,” Jyn answered.

Draven handed the arm to a passing ensign. “Take this to the medbay and have someone cut the chip out.” He leaned back on his heels and looked at Jyn. “Full mission report?”

Jyn complied.

She'd learned in the past six months that compliance meant she was less worn out. Compliance meant a good night's sleep and less bruises. In the first few weeks she'd given quite a few to Draven (and received some herself) before Cassian stepped in and convinced her to stop beating up commanding officers.

He'd let her hit him then, but only once. His grip was strong and his calm was deadly, and she'd reluctantly acquiesced.

Draven was going to recruit her after this and there wasn't any good way she could get out of it. As much as she hated it here, she had nowhere else to run. Yavin helped her survive, and gave her something to do when she was angry. And if she kept on keeping on, at some point she'd get the chance to drive a corroded dagger into the man in white’s heart.

Orson Krennic, as the data chip read. She remembered that name, from Coruscant when she was four. Her mother did not like him even then, and Jyn understood why.

He was a pretentious, self-righteous jackass who murdered Lyra Erso without a second thought and Jyn vowed to give him a taste of his own medicine.

Jyn's mother had had a special kind of disdain for Krennic the moment Galen introduced him to her, and hadn't stopped hating him from his rescuing of them on Vallt when Jyn was six months old to the moment before his men shot her on Lah’mu. Jyn had always favored her mother's legacy over her father's (the bastard), and planned to keep on hating Orson Krennic even after she'd killed him.

If anyone could see the fire that blazed in her flecked green eyes, her anger toward Krennic was what fueled it.

Draven's now-healed arm shifted at his side as if in thought. Part of Jyn, the smarter half, wanted to run. Wanted to fight. No one was in charge of Jyn Erso except Jyn Erso herself; she was a wildfire, angry and vicious and untamed.

But even the most ferocious of fires could be reined in by water, continuous dousings of water. And Jyn was feeling herself smolder and steam and sputter underneath Draven's flood of obligations.

Draven cocked his head and flicked something off the holotable. Jyn was fairly sure it was a piece of skin from the arm she'd presented moments earlier. “Five missions, Erso,” he murmured. “You've been a loyal asset.”

“Because you backed me into a corner, but I understand. Do continue.” She glared at him, exhaustion eating away the potency in her venom.

Draven raised an eyebrow. “All things considered, including behavioral inconveniences and needlessly broken bones, you're a capable soldier. Saw was right to place you on such a high pedestal.”

Thinking of Saw still stung. He'd come back for her like he promised on Tamsye Prime, but then left under her nose without warning. She should have expected it; Saw’s paranoia had reached the point that Jyn was surprised he'd returned for her the next day.

“If you're gonna recruit me, just do it. I'm only here because it gives me a better chance of settling some old scores.”

“That's the reason many willingly join, Erso,” the general responded cooly. “The Council has put a significant amount of thought into this, and while most do not have the highest opinions of you, they all agree that another pair of hands is better than one less walking anger issue. Your performance has been admirable, and so the unanimous vote is your automatic promotion to sergeant.”

“Of?”

Draven tilted his head at her in a way she could only describe as condescending. He had a way of doing that. “Pathfinders is smartest,” he mused bitterly, nursing the thought like he'd lost a considerable bet. “And if not that, my next move would have been to stick you in the naval division. But it's out of my hands and even if it weren't we're always on a tight schedule, and you've barely enough piloting experience to make a crop-duster run.”

Jyn wanted to tell him she knew more than that, but in truth he was pretty much correct. The most actual flying she'd ever done was dispensing mynock repellent throughout the asteroid belt that guarded Wrea.

Draven continued on, bored, picking at the plastoid buffer on the edge of the holotable. “You have a considerable knack for forgery of documents and clearance codes, and you're good with numbers.”

Jyn was getting impatient. “So?” she prompted.

“You'll be placed in Intelligence.” Somehow this didn't surprise her. “Andor knows you best and vice versa, so you're his partner on most missions. That  _ is  _ in my hands, Erso, and I will tell you that even if you had no idea who he was I'd still trust only him with you.” This wasn't a compliment for either her or Cassian, and Draven's grave smirk only cemented that belief in her brain. “Andor’s smart but he does dumb things sometimes, and it takes a special kind of dumb to be able to keep you in check. Somehow he excels at that.”

“I'll tell him you said that,” Jyn offered.

Draven dismissed her. “He already knows, he's gotten it from a lot of people around here,” he said. There was a pause. “Hate to say it but you keep him in line too. Keep him on his toes. He needs that.” There was an uncharacteristic softness in Draven's eyes for a moment, and Jyn forgot that he wasn't a harsh Imperial officer like he often made himself out to be unknowingly. Imperials were never soft.

The hardness of the general’s tired eyes returned and he waved Jyn off. “There's a new uniform either in your dorm or outside it; take it whenever, but preferably sooner rather than later.”

Jyn offered a dry “thanks” and headed for the door, thinking about how Intelligence uniforms at least were only standardized by the jacket. Everything else was whatever the officer could find.

She ran over the pros of being stuck here on Yavin 4. Imperials weren't looking for  _ just her _ , anymore, which was good and bad. Mothma was kind and understanding, if a little mislead in certain ideals. Jyn had found an ally in Kallus, who provided her with tech she needed for certain personal missions. The food was better than what she ever got with Saw. In Saw’s company, meals were few and far between. Jyn could count on one hand the nights she'd had a satisfying, warm meal (Xosad’s stew didn't count. Jyn wasn't sure it could even be classified as food). The rest were spent chewing at cold, meager rations or the metallic griminess of her knuckles. Tricking herself into thinking she had food was the best she could do on nights like that.

Jyn absently wondered what Cassian was doing. He'd become reluctantly close to her in a fashion vaguely similar to Saw’s bond with her in the past six months, and it'd had been easier  for Jyn to trust him as time went on because there was something so familiar about him. She couldn't quite figure out what, but she knew as soon as he steadied her hands on the steering yoke of a nondescript planet-hopper in an act of instruction that he reminded her of someone.

She had the vague idea that that  _ someone  _ had been important. She just couldn't remember who.

As an added gesture of his loyalty to her Cassian had convinced Draven to give her an official permit so she could fly her own missions. Jyn still had a vague suspicion that Cassian was trying to kiss up to her for his own benefit later on, but again and again he'd shown himself to be just not the kind of person to do that. Not to her anyway, and he firmly believed that she was against the Empire entirely, something she hadn't gotten from a lot of people.

So really the only downside to being what she perceived to be Cassian's only living-by-definition friend was that K-2SO was  _ also  _ Cassian's friend. Jyn's only real experience with droids had either been to further her learning when Lyra was busy or for target practice outside Saw’s base on Wrea, and Kay didn't strike her as anyone she'd ever even want to  _ try  _ to befriend. 

 

She heard them before she saw them, and Kay was no doubt complaining about her. He mentioned something about how she was a headache, and Cassian responded tiredly with, “You can't get headaches, Kay.”

Jyn approached them. “Oh, don't worry Kay, you give me quite the headache as well,” she muttered.

“Sergeant,” Cassian addressed mildly. Jyn gave him a look.

“You're stuck with me for a long time and I'm probably going to like it less than you,” she sighed.

“Ah, that's right, you're my partner.” Jyn tried to read his face. She still couldn't do it. “The insufferable Jyn Erso. Hasn't beat up anyone friendly in two months but won't hesitate to argue because she can.”

“I can punch you in the face right now if you'd like,” Jyn offered.

He raised an eyebrow. “We both know you can beat me in a fight,” he said. “Rather not take the risk.”

“Shut up then.” Jyn fumbled with the rank plate on her new jacket. “Draven thinks my hacking skills will be useful. Does the Intel wing not have anyone good with a code replicator?”

Cassian shrugged. “We do, but no one with quite the expertise you do,” he explained. “Also, you know the best ways to take out stormtroopers.”

“I do, and that's the only reason you're still alive,” Jyn muttered, rummaging without interest through the duffel Cassian had made the mistake of leaving open in her presence. Six months ago he might’ve smacked her hand away, but now the biggest reaction she could get out of him was a vague look of resigned disappointment.

“There are other contributing factors,” the captain argued.

Kay sighed. “I hate to align myself with Jyn Erso in any way, but she is not wrong,” he supplied. “Her offhand tips and occasional aid in our missions has reduced the risk of being shot by a single stormtrooper by thirty-five percent, and increased the chance of incapacitating one efficiently and safely by twenty-four percent.”

“See? I know what I'm doing.”

“ _ However _ ,” Kay continued, “her presence during such missions has greatly increased the chances of angering someone important, blowing our cover, getting herself shot, and other such costly inconveniences. The assignment of Jyn Erso to an espionage position was a foolish choice to make, if I am allowed to provide input.”

“We’ll help her get it down,” Cassian offered, tiredly.

“There is no ‘we’ in that proposition, Cassian. Her Partisan training is so much a part of who she is that the only espionage she can perform is Saw Gerrera espionage, which barely meets the definition of ‘espionage’, so I am unsure as to why it is classified as such.”

Jyn pulled an unidentified fruit from Cassian's bag and took a bite out of it. “You said ‘espionage’  _ way  _ too many times in that one sentence,” she said through a mouthful of fruit, waving the rest of it in Kay's general direction.

Cassian ran a hand over his face. “Three, Jyn. He only said it three times.”

Jyn raised her eyebrows at him pointedly. “I  _ know _ . That's too many for one sentence!”

“Should never have brought you back here,” Cassian muttered to himself.

Jyn spit a seed at his face. “You'd have to deal with me at some point. I'd probably be in handcuffs on the undesired side of an interrogation, but you'd still have to deal with me.”

Cassian took his bag back from her and nicked the fruit from her hand. “I hate you.”

“You hate me because I'm right!”

If Kay could roll his eyes, Jyn was pretty sure he would have. “If no one needs me, I'll be making repairs to your personal U-wing, Cassian. You've neglected to fix the aft sub-lights after our last mission.”

“Yes, thank you, Kay.”

Jyn eyed the droid. “Sometimes I forget you're not an actual person,” she jabbed. “Cassian, I think you programmed  _ too much  _ personality into this thing.”

“Kay has feelings, Jyn, and he can hear you perfectly well,” Cassian sighed.

“Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that Kay was sensitive.”

Kay cocked his head. “The only thing I'm feeling right now is the urge to knock you out, Jyn Erso. Luckily for you, the captain says you are a friend, so I cannot hurt you or kill you.”

“ _ All Intelligence officers, report to the briefing room. All Intelligence officers, report to the briefing room. _ ”

Kay's eyes swiveled in his skull casing. “I'm really leaving this time,” he said, void of emotion. Jyn watched him lumber off, hands clasped behind his back in a fashion similar to Cassian.

She turned back to Cassian, whose eyes were already on her. Unreadable, stoic. Jyn squinted at him. “What?”

There was a pause before he shrugged and pulled on his jacket. “They never call all of us in there unless there's something big,” he mused. “Or if they want to get drunk behind Mothma’s back. Think you can handle it?”

Jyn felt her heart speed up.  _ Something big. _ She needed to be out there, working under huge pressure, whether she was working with the Rebellion or not. She smiled at Cassian. “I lived with Saw Gerrera for nearly ten years,” she replied, trying to hide her excitement. “I'm more than capable.”

Cassian's mouth twitched upward in that familiar, faint, incomplete smile, and for just a second his guard fell. Jyn started at the sudden softness of his eyes, and he must have caught it, because he directed his gaze toward the ground.

“Welcome aboard Intel, then, sergeant.”

* * *

Cassian wasn't sure he'd seen anyone as anxious to get a mission as Jyn was now, and he certainly was surprised that she actually wanted to do something for the Rebellion. She practically buzzed with excitement, fiddling with a code replicator during the debriefing to keep from fidgeting.

He realized she  _ liked  _ having a job. Sure, she didn't really want to be a part of this organization, but she wasn't the kind of person who was content with lounging about and doing nothing. She had to move, she had to fight, she had to do something.

It was admirable.

Her fingers drummed on her thigh, having long since neglected the replicator. The fire in her eyes roared and Cassian knew things would get out of hand if he didn't step in.

He'd seen the look on her face when Draven mentioned her father. A look of loathing, a look of unbridled rage, and yet…sadness. Hopeful sadness. The look of a girl who just wanted her family back, but knew she never could. Cassian could sympathize.

Jyn's pace was fast, dutiful, and Cassian had to stick out an arm. “Jyn, Jyn, listen, I know this is the chance you've been waiting for but we need to go about this with clear heads…”

She grabbed his hand and looked him in the eye. “Tell me, captain, if you had the chance to not only see your father again but also kill the man who took away your family, would you be focused on much else?!”

He couldn't answer this honestly. In truth, if he ever met the man who ordered his family slaughtered in front of him, he wouldn't hesitate to shoot him. Something black and heavy swirled in the pit of his stomach and he forced it down, hiding it.

_ Not now _ , he told himself.  _ Not now _ .

“Jyn, listen to me.” She did, grumpily, locking him in place with her steely, battle-worn gaze. “You worked with Saw for years,” Cassian said. “You know better than anyone here the importance of doing a job right.”

Jyn let go of his wrist forcefully and broadened her stance, challenging him. “Saw never did a job right!” she snapped. “Sure he got them done and got the result he wanted but he--he killed people who didn't need to die. They were nothing but collateral damage to him…” She paused, like she'd realized she'd let herself soften for a moment. “That's not a job done right.” She adjusted a glove. “You'd know better than I how to do it correctly.”

Cassian watched her a moment. Thinking better about addressing the crack in her stone-hard exterior, he shrugged on a jacket made for cooler temperatures. Chandrila wasn't very cold, but its mild global climate meant that, on any given day, it could be sunny and pleasantly warm or a little chilly and wet. Cassian was putting his money on the cold and wet option. “We'll make it a learning experience then,” he decided.

She didn't argue, but the look on her face made it clear she would not like being kept on a leash. 

 

Jyn wasn't very talkative, Cassian noted. She kept to herself. Anyone who saw her arguing with a superior officer would find this hard to believe, but the norm for her (when she was ignoring him instead of bantering) was to just kind of sit and think. She stared out the viewport on the ship's door, eyes looking lost and far away.

But it wasn't a peaceful kind of idleness. This was the tense, almost melancholy idleness of a bomb that wasn't quite ready to blow but was certainly close to it.

It put Cassian on edge.

When she wasn't emotionless and silent he could read her like a children's book, everything was so clear. Most of the time spent around him or Draven was spent confrontational and her expressions were loud, shouting her feelings with no sound at all.

But this was so vastly different and gave Cassian a vague sense of dread because, even as the Rebellion’s best spy, best interrogator, he couldn't tell what she was thinking at all.

He knew now how his victims felt when he backed them into a corner, pried the words out of them by remaining completely unreadable. It was enough to make anyone spill, even if they had nothing to spill at all.

Kay leaned over. “Cassian, if I may, I would like to express how much nicer it is when Jyn is not talking,” he murmured. His head swivelled on his neck and he gave Jyn a long, heavy stare before turning back to Cassian. “However, it is also very off-putting.”

“I'd have to agree with you on that one, Kay,” Cassian replied, going over the mission again on a datapad. “It is a little disconcerting.”

“I do not even have nerves and she is making me nervous,” Kay said softly, which was the first hint of any emotion at all that the droid expressed.

Cassian laughed under his breath. “She'd be glad to hear that.”

“Can she not hear us now?”

“Don't think so.” Cassian's eyes darted to the front viewport and in the blue of hyperspace he was barely able to catch Jyn's reflection. “She's too far gone to feel anything.”

“What do you mean?”

Cassian thought about this. “I don't know her well enough to really tell you,” he said, quietly. “But she's thinking hard about something, that much I can tell, and sometimes everything else gets kind of shut off when we do that.”

Kay processed this, servos whirring in thought. He looked back at Cassian. “So it is like when I have to shut down all nonessential functions while cleaning out my memory?” he suggested.

Kay didn't realize it, but he'd struck something. That something clicked with Cassian and he looked at Jyn one last time. “...Yeah,” he confirmed after a moment. “Yeah, that's exactly what it's like.”

_ She's trying to forget _ .

Cassian wasn't so sure it was working out for her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in other words I WAS GONNA WRITE MORE FOR THIS BUT HAD BAD WRITERS BLOCK FOR ACTUAL MONTHS and then i read through it again and decided where id left off was a good chapter ending so
> 
> sorry its kinda short and also that I died for a little bit there. school tends to get my ideas flowing faster so updates should be more regular soon.


End file.
